A set-oriented method definition language for object databases and its semantics

In this paper we propose a set-oriented rule-based method definition language for object-oriented databases. Most existing object-oriented database systems exploit a general-purpose imperative object-oriented programming language as the method definition language. Because methods are written in a general-purpose imperative language, it is difficult to analyze their properties and to optimize them. Optimization is important when dealing with a large amount of objects as in databases. We therefore believe that the use of an ad hoc, set-oriented language can offer some advantages, at least at the specification level. In particular, such a language can offer an appropriate framework to reason about method properties. In this paper, besides defining a set-oriented rule-based language for method definition, we formally define its semantics, addressing the problems of inconsistency and non-determinism in set-oriented updates. Moreover, we characterize some relevant properties of methods, such as conflicts among method specifications in sibling classes and behavioral refinement in subclasses. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.