Extending the ODMG Object Model with Composite Objects

Abstract

In this paper we extend the ODMG object data model with composite objects. A composite object is an object built by aggregating other component objects. Exclusiveness and dependency constraints, as well as referential integrity, can be associated with composition relationships among objects. Our composite object model is developed in the framework of the ODMG object database standard data model, but can be used in both object-oriented and object-relational database systems. In the paper, we propose a language for defining composite objects and we define the semantics of update operations on composite objects. Keywords Object-oriented database systems, composite objects, integrity constraints, data models. INTRODUCTION Object-oriented DBMS (OODBMS) and object-relational DBMS (ORDBMS) are establishing themselves as the new generation DBMS. Object database systems overcome the limitations of relational systems with respect to several emerging data-intensive applications because of thei...