Complex time management in databases

Abstract

AbstractTemporal database is an extension of the concept of standard databases which process only current valid data. Temporal structure is not based only on managing historical data, but it should also model the data, the validity of which will be in the future in special structures. This paper deals with the temporal structure on object level in comparison with the column level temporal data. It describes the principles, required methods, procedures, functions and triggers to provide the functionality of this system. It also defines the possible implementations and offers the solution to get the snapshot of the database or the object whenever during the existence. The reason for column level solution development is based on the heterogeneity of the attributes time. Some attributes, however, do not change their values over the time or are updated very rarely, and therefore it is not necessary to record the new values for these attributes.