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A relational object model

  • Object-Oriented Databases
  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
ICDT '90 (ICDT 1990)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 470))

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Abstract

The relational model and its extensions are often considered incompatible with object-orientation. However, on the one hand nested relations provide the complex object features demanded by object models. Particularly, powerful query languages exploit the complex data structure while keeping the advantages of the declarative, set-oriented paradigm. On the other hand, object models provide semantically rich constructs for advanced modeling, and abstractions of operations as well as data. In this paper, we show an evolutionary path from relational, essentially nested relational, to object-oriented data models and query languages. Basically, allowing nested relation schemes to be recursively defined yields the necessary flexibility w.r.t structure. The query language, i.e., nested relational algebra, carries over to this “network” model. As a first step towards the object-oriented integration of cooperative systems, different views onto the objects have to be supported. We present a powerful view definition facility that basically allows object views as well as relational views to be defined in our object algebra.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ETH Zürich, Dept. of Computer Science, Information Systems — Databases ETH Zentrum, CH-8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Marc H. Scholl & Hans-Jörg Schek

Authors
  1. Marc H. Scholl
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  2. Hans-Jörg Schek
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Editor information

Serge Abiteboul Paris C. Kanellakis

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Scholl, M.H., Schek, HJ. (1990). A relational object model. In: Abiteboul, S., Kanellakis, P.C. (eds) ICDT '90. ICDT 1990. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 470. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-53507-1_72

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-53507-1_72

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-53507-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46682-6

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