Brings together key developments in OO databases from areas such as semantic modelling, formal data models, language design issues, object algebra and rule-based query languages. Shows how these elements may interact within an object-oriented database system. Paper. DLC: Object-oriented database.
Object-oriented databases have been a subject of research for approximately 15 years and available for commercial use for about seven years. Typically, today's information technology disciplines focus on the paradigm of object orientation. The introduction of object orientation in databases relieves users of many of the restrictions implied by existing technologies, particularly the relational technology, as may be illustrated by the following two examples:
" Because data and its relationships no longer need to be represented in table format, more appropriate modelling and processing techniques have emerged for many applications.
" From the point of view of software engineering and application development there is a discontinuity if development is based on object-oriented methods but the underlying database system is relational. Using an object-oriented database system would allow data management to be integrated smoothly into the software engineering methodology.