Abstract The EXODUS database toolkit, and in particular the E persistent programming language, have been used in two substantial database system implementation efforts by the authors, the Ariel database rule system and the Triton nested relation DBMS. An important advantage of using a persistent programming language for database system implementation is that it is easy to implement special‐purpose persistent objects used by the DBMS such as catalogs, rule indexes, and nested relational structures. Support for transactions built into a persistent programming language greatly reduces the effort required to implement a database system. A disadvantage observed is that it is not possible to map the type system of the DBMS to the type system of the underlying programming language while still retaining good performance for ad hoc queries. Also, software engineering difficulties arise when a persistent language makes a distinction between database types and main‐memory types.

Article Free Access Share on Experiences in DBMS implementation using an object-oriented persistent programming language and a database toolkit Authors: Eric N. Hanson Artificial Intelligence Technology Office (WL/AAA-1), Air Force Wright Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH and Wright State University Artificial Intelligence Technology Office (WL/AAA-1), Air Force Wright Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH and Wright State UniversityView Profile , Tina M. Harvey 7th Communications Group/DOWI, The Pentagon, Washington DC and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology 7th Communications Group/DOWI, The Pentagon, Washington DC and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Air Force Institute of TechnologyView Profile , Mark A. Roth Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (AFIT/ENG), Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (AFIT/ENG), Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OHView Profile Authors Info & Claims OOPSLA '91: Conference proceedings on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applicationsNovember 1991 Pages 314–328https://doi.org/10.1145/117954.117978Published:01 November 1991Publication History 4citation718DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations4Total Downloads718Last 12 Months19Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

Relaxing the assumption that relations are always in First-Normal-Form (1NF) necessitates a reexamination of the fundamentals of relational database theory. In this paper we take a first step towards unifying the various theories of ¬1NF databases. We start by determining an appropriate model to couch our formalisms in. We then define an extended relational calculus as the theoretical basis for our ¬1NF database query language. We define a minimal extended relational algebra and prove its equivalence to the ¬1NF relational calculus. We define a class of ¬1NF relations with certain “good” properties and extend our algebra operators to work within this domain. We prove certain desirable equivalences that hold only if we restrict our language to this domain.

We develop new algorithms for the design of non first normal form relational databases that are in nested normal form. Previously, a set of given multivalued dependencies and those multivalued dependencies implied by given functional dependencies were used to obtain a nested normal form decomposition of a scheme. This method ignored the semantic distinction between functional and multivalued dependencies and utilized only full multivalued dependencies in the design process. We propose new algorithms which take advantage of this distinction, and use embedded multivalued dependencies to enhance the decomposition. This results in further elimination of redundancy due to functional dependencies in nested normal form designs.