Referential Integrity Revisited: An Object-Oriented Perspective.

@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/vldb/Markowitz90,
  author    = {Victor M. Markowitz},
  editor    = {Dennis McLeod and
               Ron Sacks-Davis and
               Hans-J{\"o}rg Schek},
  title     = {Referential Integrity Revisited: An Object-Oriented Perspective},
  booktitle = {16th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, August
               13-16, 1990, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Proceedings},
  publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann},
  year      = {1990},
  isbn      = {1-55860-149-X},
  pages     = {578-589},
  ee        = {db/conf/vldb/Markowitz90.html},
  crossref  = {DBLP:conf/vldb/90},
  bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de}
}

Abstract

Referential integrity underlies the relational representation of object-oriented structures. The concept of referential integrity in relational databases is hindered by the confusion surrounding both the concept itself and its implementation by relational database management systems (RDBMS). Most of this confusion is caused by the diversity of relational representations for object-oriented structures. We examine the relationship between these representations and the structure ofreferential integrity constraints, and show that the controversial structures either do not occur or can be avoided in the relational representations of object-oriented structures.

Referential integrity is not supported uniformly by RDBMS products. Thus, referential integrity constraints can be specified in some RDBMSs non- procedurally (declaratively), while in other RDBMSs they must be specified procedurally. Moreover, some RDBMSs do not allow the specification of certain referential integrity constraints. We discuss the referential integrity capabilities provided by three representative RDBMSs, DB2, SYBASE, and INGRES.

Copyright © 1990 by the VLDB Endowment. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the VLDB copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by the permission of the Very Large Data Base Endowment. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or special permission from the Endowment.

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Referenced by

1. Arnon Rosenthal, David S. Reiner: Tools and Transformations - Rigorous and Otherwise - for Practical Database Design. ACM Trans. Database Syst. 19(2): 167-211(1994)
2. Bruce M. Horowitz: A Run-Time Execution Model for Referential Integrity Maintenance. ICDE 1992: 548-556
3. Gerti Kappel, Michael Schrefl: Local Referential Integrity. ER 1992: 41-61
4. Ulf Schreier, Hamid Pirahesh, Rakesh Agrawal, C. Mohan: Alert: An Architecture for Transforming a Passive DBMS into an Active DBMS. VLDB 1991: 469-478
5. Victor M. Markowitz: Safe Referential Structures in Relational Databases. VLDB 1991: 123-132
6. Marco A. Casanova, A. P. de Carvalho, L. F. G. G. M. Ridolfi, Alberto H. F. Laender: An Analysis of Table Constraints in SQL2 Based on the Entity-Relationship Model. ER 1991: 623-641