An object-oriented approach to database system implementation

Abstract

This paper examines object-oriented programming as an implementation technique for database systems. The object-oriented approach encapsulates the representations of database entities and relationships with the procedures that manipulate them. To achieve this, we first define abstractions of the modeling constructs of the data model that describe their common properties and behavior. Then we represent the entity types and relationship types in the conceptual schema and the internal schema by objects that are instances of these abstractions. The generic procedures (data manipulation routines) that comprise the user interface can now be implemented as calls to the procedures associated with these objects. A generic procedure model of database implementation techniques is presented and discussed. Several current database system implementation techniques are illustrated as examples of this model, followed by a critical analysis of our implementation technique based on the use of objects. We demonstrate that the object-oriented approach has advantages of data independence, run-time efficiency due to eliminating access to system descriptors, and support for low-level views.