GENITIVE RELATIONS AND THE COMPOSITE OBJECT-ORIENTED LANGUAGE COOL FOR OBJECT SUPPORT IN $N sup 2$
Date
1992-08-01
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Abstract
A distinction is made between two fundamentally
different approaches to declarative languages for relational data
bases. One approach is entire-relation oriented, embodied in tuple
calculus and SQL. The other approach is composite-object oriented, the
subject of this paper. Constructs for a composite-object oriented
declarative language, called COOL, are proposed for use with relational
data bases. To enable unambiguous specification
and quantification of relationships, a construct called a genitive
relation is introduced. The notion of composite-object concentration
is also introduced. These constructs allow objects to be manipulated
on the basis of quantified relationships between object instances,
with universal, existential, and natural quantification. They also
permit specification and concentration of composite objects of great
complexity, and composite objects based on functional dependency
relationships. COOL can also manipulate independent entity structures,
both hierarchical and network, and generalization or IS-A type
hierarchies. COOL is proposed as a subset of COOL, for use where a
relational data base has a distinct object orientation.
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Computer Science