TSQL2 and SQL3 Interactions

republished from the http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/rts/sql3.html

• Richard T. Snodgrass:
  TSQL2 Temporal Query Language / TSQL2 and SQL3 Interactions: Copy of ftp://ftp.cs.arizona.edu/tsql/tsql2/.
  Electronic Edition BibTeX

Various members of the temporal database research community are working to transfer some of the constructs and insights of TSQL2 into SQL3. The first step was to propose a new part to SQL3, termed SQL/Temporal. This new part was accepted at the Ottawa meeting in January, 1995 as Part 7 of the SQL3 specification. A modification of TSQL2's PERIOD data type is included in that part.

Discussions then commenced on adding valid-time and transaction-time support to SQL/Temporal. Two change proposals, ANSI-96-501 and ANSI-96-502, were unanimously accepted by ANSI and forwarded to ISO. These proposals have not yet been voted on by the ISO committee, because that body is busy finalizing SQL/Foundation as an international standard. A discussion of these proposals may be found in "Transitioning Temporal Support in TSQL2 to SQL3," by R. T. Snodgrass, M. H. Bohlen, C. S. Jensen, and A. Steiner, in Temporal Databases: Research and Practice, O. Etzion, S. Jajodia, and S. Sripada (eds.), Springer, pp. 150-194, 1998.

A prototype implementation of the proposed constructs has been developed by Andreas Steiner and Michael Boehlen: TimeDB.

The base document for Part 7, SQL/Temporal, against which further change proposals are directed, is edited by Jim Melton. Some ISO SQL3 documents are available at jerry.ece.umassd.edu/isowg3/dbl. Some ANSI documents are available at jerry.ece.umassd.edu/isowg3/x3h2. ANSI and ISO documents have the following prefixes.

• ansi-94: To ANSI in 1994
• ansi-95: To ANSI in 1995
• ansi-96: To ANSI in 1996
• ansi-97: To ANSI in 1997
• RIO: To ISO for the Rio de Janeiro meeting in January, 1995
• OTT: To ISO for the Ottawa meeting in July, 1995
• LHR: To ISO for the London meeting in January, 1996
• MCI: To ISO for the Kansas City meeting, May, 1996
• MAD: To ISO for the Madrid meeting, January-February, 1997

The general procedure is that change proposals are first directed towards a national committee (i.e., ANSI X3H2), which then decides whether to forward the proposal to the international committee (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 21/WG 3 DBL).

The .pdf files are Adobe PDF; they can be read via the 3.0 reader, accessible at http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html. The .ps files are postscript files.

ANSI documents

• ansi-97-010 Response to MAD-220, 13pp. [ps, pdf]
• ansi-97-011 A Second Addendum to Valid- and Transaction-Time Proposals, 7pp. [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-013 A Road Map of Additions to SQL/Temporal, 9pp. [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-014 Adding Valid Time -- Part A (revision of lhr096) [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-151 Adding Valid Time to SQL/Temporal, 68pp. (revision of ansi-96-014) [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-152 Adding Transaction Time to SQL/Temporal, 44pp. [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-501 Adding Valid Time to SQL/Temporal, 77pp. (revision of mci142) [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-502 Adding Transaction Time to SQL/Temporal, 47pp. (revision of mci143) [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-503 Summary of Research Results on Implementing Temporal Support in Relational Databases, 11pp. [ps, pdf]
• ansi-96-582 Addendum to Valid- and Transaction-time Proposals, 8pp. [ps, pdf]
• ansi-95-486 Response to LHR-042, "Possible problems in SQL/T" [ps, pdf]
• ansi-95-487 Response to LHR-043, "Fixing possible problems in SQL/T" [ps, pdf]
• ansi-94-276 TSQL2 [ps, pdf]
• ansi-94-xxx Adding Valid Time to SQL3 (excerpt of TSQL2 syntax from book) [ps, pdf]

ISO documents

• RTM-? Comments on Minor Changes (RTM-040r1, RTM-041, RTM-042r1) [pdf]
• MAD146 Adding Valid Time to SQL/Temporal, 77 pp. (identical to ansi-96-501) [ps, pdf]
• MAD147 Adding Transaction Time to SQL/Temporal, 47 pp. (identical to ansi-96-502) [ps, pdf]
• MAD148 Summary of Research Results On Implementing Temporal Support in Relational Databases, 11 pp. (identical to ansi-96-503) [ps, pdf]
• MAD203 Addendum to Valid- and Transaction-time Proposals, 8pp. (identical to ansi-96-582) [ps, pdf]
• MAD245 Response to MAD-220, 13pp. (identical to ansi-97-010) [ps, pdf]
• MCI099 A Road Map of Additions to SQL/Temporal, 9pp. (revision of ansi-96-013) [ps, pdf]
• MCI142 Adding Valid Time to SQL/Temporal, 77 pp. (revision of ansi-96-151) [ps, pdf]
• MCI143 Adding Transaction Time to SQL/Temporal, 49pp. (revision of ansi-96-152) [ps, pdf]
• MCI144 Road Map Queries in the US and UK Proposals, 6pp. [ps, pdf]
• RIO075 SQL/Temporal Base Document Proposal (excerpt and revision of ansi-94-xxx) [ps, pdf]
• LHR092 Response to LHR-042, "Possible problems in SQL/T" (revision of ansi-486) [ps, pdf]
• LHR093 Response to LHR-043, "Fixing possible problems in SQL/T" (revision of ansi-487) [ps, pdf]
• LHR096 Adding Valid Time -- Part A [ps, pdf]

More information on this effort may be requested from Richard Snodgrass, rts@cs.arizona.edu.