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Object (and Object-Relational) Database Systems (part two) CSS263 Lecture 18

LECTURE PLAN
OBJECT DATABASE SYSTEMS PART TWO
What is an OODBMS? Advantages and Disadvantages of OODBMSs

What is an ORDBMS?
What is SQL3? Comparison of OODBMSs and ORDBMSs When to use an OODBMS When to use an ORDBMS

REMINDER OF THE PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH AN RDBMS

RELATIONAL DBMSs
PROBLEMS

Poor representation of real world entities.

Semantic overloading.
Poor support for integrity and business constraints. Homogeneous data structure. Limited operations. Difficulty handling recursive queries.

Impedance mismatch.
Difficulty with Long Transactions.

WHAT IS AN OODBMS?

OODBMS

OODBMS
WHAT IS AN OODBMS?
Object Oriented Database Management Systems (OODBMSs) are an attempt at marrying the power of Object Oriented Programming Languages with the persistence and associated technologies of a DBMS. OBJECT ORIENTED DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OOPLs Complex Objects Object Identity Methods & Messages Inheritance Polymorphism Extensibility Computational Completeness DBMSs Persistence Disc Management Data Sharing Reliability Security Ad Hoc Querying

OODBMS
THE OO DATABASE MANIFESTO
CHARACTERISTICS THAT MUST BE SUPPORTED

Complex objects Object Identity Encapsulation Classes Inheritance Overriding and late-binding Extensibility Computational completeness Persistence Concurrency Recovery Ad-hoc querying

OODBMSs
REQUIREMENTS AND FEATURES
Requirements:

Transparently add persistence to OO programming languages Ability to handle complex data - i.e., Multimedia data Ability to handle data complexity - i.e., Interrelated data items Add DBMS Features to OO programming languages
Features: The host programming language is also the DML. The in-memory and storage models are merged. No conversion code between models and languages is needed.

TWO-LEVEL STORAGE MODEL FOR A RDBMS


Main or virtual memory

Transforming and type checking

SQL
Secondary storage

ACCESSING A RECORD USING AN RDBMS


Page
3. Access object

Record

4. Copy modified fields

2. Copy relevant fields

Page

Record
5. Save page 1. Read page

Page

Record

SINGLE-LEVEL STORAGE MODEL FOR AN OODBMS


Main or virtual memory

Secondary storage

ACCESSING AN OBJECT USING AN OODBMS

3. Access object
4. Swizzle pointers back, etc.

Page
Object

2. Swizzle pointers, etc.

5. Save page

1. Read page

Page
Object

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF AN OODBMS?

OODBMSs
ADVANTAGES

Enriched modelling capabilities

Extensibility
Removal of Impedance Mismatch Support for schema evolution. Support for long duration transactions. Applicable for advanced database applications

Improved performance.

OODBMSs
DISADVANTAGES

Lack of a universal data model

Lack of experience
Lack of standards. Ad-hoc querying compromises encapsulation. Locking at object-level impacts performance Complexity
Lack of support for views
Lack of support for security

WHAT IS AN ORDBMS?

ORDBMSs
WHAT IS AN ORDBMS?
Definition:

Object-Relational databases extend the Relational Data Model to address those weaknesses identified previously.
An Object-Relational database adds features associated with object-oriented systems to the Relational Data Model.

In essence ORDBMSs are an attempt to add OO to Tables!

ORDBMSs
MAJOR DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ORDBMS AND AN OODBMS OODBMSs try to add DBMS functionality to one or more OO programming languages.
REVOLUTIONARY IN THAT THEY ABANDON SQL

ORDBMSs try to add richer data types and OO features to a relational DBMS.
EVOLUTIONARY IN THAT THEY EXTEND SQL

SQL3

ORDBMSs
WHAT IS SQL3? SQL3 or SQL/99:

SQL3 is a superset of SQL/92, in that it supports all of the constructs supported by that standard, as well as adding new ones of its own.
Therefore, whatever worked in an implementation of SQL/92 should also work in an implementation of SQL3.
HOWEVER, IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT AS YET THERE ARE NO IMPLEMENTATIONS OF SQL3!

ORDBMSs
WHAT IS NEW IN SQL3?

Extended Base Types.

Row Types.
User-Defined Types. User-Defined Routines. Sub-Types and Super-Types. Sub-Tables and Super-Tables.

Reference Types and Object Identity.


Collection Types.

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - EXTENDED BASE TYPES
ONE OF THE REASONS FOR THE MOVE AWAY FROM RDBMSs IS THE LIMITED BASE TYPE AVAILABILITY:
BASE TYPES AVAILABLE IN SQL/92 INCLUDE: NUMBER, CHAR, DATE, ... BASE TYPES IN SQL3 ARE EXTENSIBLE. THEREFORE THE FOLLOWING MUCH NEEDED TYPES COULD BE ADDED (PROVIDED SOMEBODY CREATES THEM!) VIDEO, IMAGE, AUDIO, TEXT, SPATIAL, TEMPORAL, GEOGRAPHIC, WEB-PAGES, ...

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - ROW TYPES
BRANCHNO STREET ADDRESS AREA CITY

10 20 30

MAIN ST. HIGH RD. HIGH ST.

BARKING LEYTON MARSDEN

LONDON LONDON OXFORD

CREATE TABLE branch ( branchno VARCHAR(3), address ROW ( street VARCHAR(25), area VARCHAR(15), city VARCHAR(15));

COLUMN ATTRIBUTES NO LONGER HAVE TO BE ATOMIC!

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - USER-DEFINED TYPES
CREATE TYPE person_type AS ( PRIVATE date_of_birth DATE CHECK (date_of_birth > DATE 1900-01-1901), PUBLIC name VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL, address VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, tel_no VARCHAR(13) NOT NULL, FUNCTION get_age (P person_type) RETURNS INTEGER /* code to calculate age from date_of_birth */ RETURN END) NOT FINAL;

An example of a User-Defined Routine (UDR)

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - SUB-TYPES & SUPER-TYPES
PERSON-TYPE
date of birth name address tel-no get_age()

Sub-Types and Super-Types are used to allow for INHERITANCE in SQL3 A Sub-Type can inherit from more than one Super-Type.

Multiple Inheritance is allowed!


STAFF-TYPE sno position salary branch is_manager()

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - SUB-TYPES & SUPER-TYPES
CREATE TYPE staff_type UNDER person_type AS (

sno position salary bno

VARCHAR(5) NOT NULL UNIQUE, VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL, NUMBER(7,2), VARCHAR(3) NOT NULL,

CREATE FUNCTION is_manager (s STAFF_TYPE) RETURNS BOOLEAN BEGIN IF s.position = Manager THEN RETURN TRUE; ELSE RETURN FALSE; END IF END) NOT FINAL;

Another example of a User-Defined Routine (UDR)

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - TYPES & TABLES
In order to remain upwardly compatible with SQL-92, TYPES can ONLY be instantiated through SQL Tables!

Therefore, in order to create instances of a type we first have to create a table to store those instances in!
EXAMPLE: In order to create staff instances we first have to do one of the following: CREATE TABLE staff OF STAFF_TYPE ( PRIMARY KEY sno); CREATE TABLE staff ( info STAFF_TYPE, PRIMARY KEY sno);

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - SUB-TABLES & SUPER-TABLES
PROBLEM - What happens if we create two or more tables for the same TYPE? How do we find all TYPE instances?
EXAMPLE: FIND ALL MEMBERS OF STAFF! CREATE TABLE lecturer OF STAFF_TYPE ( PRIMARY KEY sno); CREATE TABLE admin OF STAFF_TYPE ( PRIMARY KEY sno);

The only way of doing this is to declare the lecturer and admin tables as sub-tables of a staff super-table!

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - SUB-TABLES & SUPER-TABLES
SUPER-TABLE
CREATE TABLE staff OF STAFF_TYPE ( PRIMARY KEY sno);

SUB-TABLES
CREATE TABLE lecturer OF STAFF_TYPE UNDER staff ( PRIMARY KEY sno); CREATE TABLE admin OF STAFF_TYPE UNDER staff ( PRIMARY KEY sno); SOLUTION TO PROBLEM (FIND ALL STAFF): SQL> SELECT * FROM staff;

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - REFERENCE TYPES AND OIDS
A Reference Type is the SQL3 equivalent of an OID in an OODBMS.
Reference Types allow a row to be shared among multiple tables, and enable users to replace complex join operations with path expressions!
EXAMPLE:
CREATE TYPE staff_type UNDER person_type AS ( sno VARCHAR(5) NOT NULL UNIQUE, position VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL, salary NUMBER(7,2), Could point to a row in ANY next_of_kin REF(person_type) table containing a person_type! bno VARCHAR(3) NOT NULL) NOT FINAL; CREATE TABLE person OF person_type ( oid REF(person_type) VALUES ARE SYSTEM GENERATED);

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - REFERENCE TYPES AND OIDS
To ensure that a REFERENCE is limited to a single table, a SCOPE has to be added to the table using the REFERENCE!
EXAMPLE:
CREATE TYPE staff_type UNDER person_type AS ( sno VARCHAR(5) NOT NULL UNIQUE, position VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL, salary NUMBER(7,2), staff next_of_kin will point next_of_kin REF(person_type) to a row in the person table!) bno VARCHAR(3) NOT NULL) NOT FINAL; CREATE TABLE person OF person_type ( oid REF(person_type) VALUES ARE SYSTEM GENERATED); CREATE TABLE staff OF staff_type ( PRIMARY KEY sno, SCOPE FOR next_of_kin IS person);

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - COLLECTION TYPES
SQL3 COLLECTION TYPES ARE THE EQUIVALENT OF COLLECTION TYPES IN OODBMSs List (base) Array (base) Set (base) - ordered collection allows duplicates - one-dimensional array, max no. - unordered collection, no duplicates

Multiset(base) - unordered collection, allows duplicates


KNOWN AS A BAG IN AN OODBMS!

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - COLLECTION TYPES
EXAMPLE
CREATE TABLE branch ( bno NUMBER(3), address ROW ( street VARCHAR(15), area VARCHAR(15), city VARCHAR(15) staff SET (STAFF_TYPE));

THE USE OF COLLECTION TYPES WITHIN TABLES ENSURE THAT TABLES NO LONGER HAVE TO BE IN 1NF

REPEATING GROUPS ARE ALLOWED!

ORDBMSs
SQL3 - OTHER ADDITIONS
THE MAIN ADDITIONS TO SQL THAT ARE NOT SPECIFICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH ADDING OBJECT-SUPPORT ARE THE FOLLOWING: SQL IS NOW COMPUTATIONALLY COMPLETE

PERSISTENT STORED MODULES ARE SUPPORTED TRIGGERS ARE SUPPORTED

OODBMS or ORDBMS?

OODBMS or ORDBMS
CONSIDERATIONS
OODBMS - put more emphasis on the role of the client, i.e., Client side caching! This can radically improve long, process intensive, transactions.
ORDBMS - SQL is still the language for data definition, manipulation and query Still have Impedance Mismatch! OODBMSs have been optimised to directly support objectoriented applications and specific OO languages. ORDBMSs are supported by most of the major players in the DBMS market place.

OODBMS or ORDBMS
CONSIDERATIONS
ORDBMS - Most third-party database tools are written for the relational model (SQL-92), and will therefore be backward-compatible with SQL3.

ORDBMS - search, access and manipulate complex data types in the database with standard SQL (SQL3), without breaking the rules of the relational data model.
OODBMS The ODMG standard groups OQL is now the de-facto query language amongst OODBMS vendors. However, in order to use it, collection objects (known as extents) have to first be created for each class.

OODBMS or ORDBMS
CONSIDERATIONS
OODBMS - In order to realise the value of an OODBMS you must build your application using methods written in one of several object-oriented language (i.e. C++, Java, Smalltalk).

WHEN TO USE AN OODBMS

OODBMS or ORDBMS
WHEN TO USE AN OODBMS In applications that generally retrieve relatively few (generally physically large) highly complex objects and work on them for fairly long periods of time. This will necessitate the use of client caching, pointer swizzling, and non-locking forms of concurrency control.

WHEN TO USE AN ORDBMS

OODBMS or ORDBMS
WHEN TO USE AN ORDBMS In applications that process a large number of shortlived (generally ad-hoc query) transactions on data items that can be arbitrarily complex in structure. Where the main emphasises is on efficient query optimisation to limit disk accesses, and traditional concurrency control is acceptable.

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