  We study ranked enumeration of join-query results according to very general
orders defined by selective dioids. Our main contribution is a framework for
ranked enumeration over a class of dynamic programming problems that
generalizes seemingly different problems that had been studied in isolation. To
this end, we extend classic algorithms that find the k-shortest paths in a
weighted graph. For full conjunctive queries, including cyclic ones, our
approach is optimal in terms of the time to return the top result and the delay
between results. These optimality properties are derived for the widely used
notion of data complexity, which treats query size as a constant. By performing
a careful cost analysis, we are able to uncover a previously unknown tradeoff
between two incomparable enumeration approaches: one has lower complexity when
the number of returned results is small, the other when the number is very
large. We theoretically and empirically demonstrate the superiority of our
techniques over batch algorithms, which produce the full result and then sort
it. Our technique is not only faster for returning the first few results, but
on some inputs beats the batch algorithm even when all results are produced.
