Lehrgebiet Informationssysteme

FB Informatik

LG IS

AG DBIS

(C) AG DBIS

Enhanced Support of Relationship Semantics in Object-Relational Database Systems

Nan Zhang, Theo Härder

University of Kaiserslautern
P.O. Box 3049, 67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany
e-mail: {zhang|haerder}@informatik.uni-kl.de

Full paper (gzipped PostScript)

Abstract:

In face of the complex requirements of advanced applications, extended-relational or object-relational database management systems (ORDBMSs) enjoy now more and more popularity due to their promise to overcome the deficiencies of both object-oriented and relational DBMSs. However, object-relational data models (ORDMs) and their supporting technologies are far from mature. Particularly, while data relationships play a very important role in application domains, they are still not well considered by the new database technology. The main purpose of this work is to outline how accurate relationship semantics can be captured from the real world and supported in the setting of ORDBMSs. We present our prototype ORIENT which facilitates the explicit specification as well as the automatic maintenance of relationship semantics. The prototype is implemented and integrated in an underlying DBMS, so that all our proposals and extensions can be put into practical use.

Published in Proc. XIII Brazilian Symposium on Database Systems (SBBD'98), Brazil, 1998, pp. 7-21.