Advanced

Database Systems

Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking)

 Chapter One

Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases

 OUTLINE
• Overview of O-O Concepts

• O-O Identity, Object Structure and Type Constructors

• Encapsulation of Operations, Methods and Persistence

• Type and Class Hierarchies, and Inheritance

• Complex Objects

• Other O-O Concepts

• Summary & Contemporary Status

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Introduction
• Traditional Data Models: • Reasons for creation of Object
Oriented Databases:
• Hierarchical
• Need for more complex
• Network (since mid-60’s) applications
• Relational (since 1970 and • Need for additional data
commercially since 1982) modeling features
• Object Oriented (OO) Data • Increased use of oop languages
Models since mid-90’s • Commercial OO Database Products
Several in the 1990’s, but did not make
much impact on mainstream data
management

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 History of OO Models and Systems
• Programming Languages:

• Simula (1960’s)
• Smalltalk (1970’s)
• C++ (late 1980’s)
• Java (1990’s and 2000’s)

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 History of OO Models and Systems

• Experimental Systems:

• Orion at MCC
• IRIS at H-P labs
• Open-OODB at T.I.
• ODE at ATT Bell labs
• Postgres - Montage - Illustra at UC/B
• Encore/Observer at Brown

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 History of OO Models and Systems
• Commercial OO Database Products:

• Ontos
• Gemstone
• O2 ( -> Ardent)
• Objectivity
• Objectstore ( -> Excelon)
• Versant
• Poet
• Jasmine (Fujitsu – GM)
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 Overview of Object-Oriented Concepts
• Main Claim:
OO databases try to maintain a direct correspondence between real-world
and database objects so that objects do not lose their integrity and
identity and can easily be identified and operated upon

• Object:
Two components:
• State (value) and behavior (operations)

Similar to program variable in programming language, except that it will typically

have a complex data structure as well as specific operations defined by the
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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Overview of Object-Oriented Concepts

• In OO databases, objects may have an object structure of arbitrary

complexity in order to contain all of the necessary information that
describes the object
• In contrast, in traditional database systems, information about a
complex object is often scattered over many relations or records, leading
to loss of direct correspondence between a real-world object and its
database representation

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Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Overview of Object-Oriented Concepts

• The internal structure of an object in OOPLs includes the

specification of instance variables, which hold the values that define
the internal state of the object

• An instance variable is similar to the concept of an attribute, except

that instance variables may be encapsulated within the object and
thus are not necessarily visible to external users

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Overview of Object-Oriented Concepts

• Some OO models insist that all operations a user can apply to an

object must be predefined. This forces a complete encapsulation of
objects
• To encourage encapsulation, an operation is defined in two parts:
• Signature or interface of the operation, specifies the operation
name and arguments (or parameters)
• Method or body, specifies the implementation of the operation

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Overview of Object-Oriented Concepts

• Operations can be invoked by passing a message to an object, which

includes the operation name and the parameters
• The object then executes the method for that operation

• This encapsulation permits modification of the internal structure of an

object, as well as the implementation of its operations, without the need
to disturb the external programs that invoke these operations

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 Overview of Object-Oriented Concepts

• Some OO systems provide capabilities for dealing with multiple

versions of the same object (a feature that is essential in design and
engineering applications)
• For example, an old version of an object that represents a tested and
verified design should be retained until the new version is tested and
verified
• Very crucial for designs in manufacturing process control, architecture
, software systems …..

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 Overview of Object-Oriented Concepts
• Operator Polymorphism:

• This refers to an operation’s ability to be applied to different

types of objects; in such a situation, an operation name may
refer to several distinct implementations, depending on the
type of objects it is applied to
• This feature is also called operator overloading

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors
• Unique Identity:
• An OO database system provides a unique identity to each
independent object stored in the database
• This unique identity is typically implemented via a unique, system-
generated object identifier, or OID
• The main property required of an OID is that it be immutable
• Specifically, the OID value of a particular object should not
change
• This preserves the identity of the real-world object being
represented
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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture

Lecture 1:
1: Concepts
Concepts for
for Object-Oriented
Object-Oriented Databases
Databases 6/29/2018
 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

• Type Constructors:
• In OO databases, the state (current value) of a complex object
may be constructed from other objects (or other values) by
using certain type constructors
• The three most basic constructors are atom, tuple, and set
• Other commonly used constructors include list, bag, and
array
• The atom constructor is used to represent all basic atomic
values, such as integers, real numbers, character strings,
Booleans, and any other basic data types that the system
supports directly
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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors
• Example 1
• One possible relational database state corresponding to
COMPANY schema

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

• We use i1, i2, i3, . . . to stand for unique system-generated object

identifiers. Consider the following objects:
• o1 = (i1, atom, ‘Houston’)
• o2 = (i2, atom, ‘Bellaire’)
• o3 = (i3, atom, ‘Sugarland’)
• o4 = (i4, atom, 5)
• o5 = (i5, atom, ‘Research’)
• o6 = (i6, atom, ‘1988-05-22’)
• o7 = (i7, set, {i1, i2, i3})

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

• o8 = (i8, tuple, <dname:i5, dnumber:i4, mgr:i9, locations:i7, employees:i10,

projects:i11>)
• o9 = (i9, tuple, <manager:i12, manager_start_date:i6>)
• o10 = (i10, set, {i12, i13, i14})
• o11 = (i11, set {i15, i16, i17})
• o12 = (i12, tuple, <fname:i18, minit:i19, lname:i20, ssn:i21, . . ., salary:i26,
supervisor:i27, dept:i8>)
• ...

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

• The first six objects listed in this example represent atomic values

• Object seven is a set-valued object that represents the set of locations

for department 5; the set refers to the atomic objects with values
{‘Houston’, ‘Bellaire’, ‘Sugarland’}

• Object 8 is a tuple-valued object that represents department 5 itself,

and has the attributes DNAME, DNUMBER, MGR,
LOCATIONS, and so on

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors
• Example 2
• This example illustrates the difference between the two
definitions for comparing object states for equality
• o1 = (i1, tuple, <a1:i4, a2:i6>)
• o2 = (i2, tuple, <a1:i5, a2:i6>)
• o3 = (i3, tuple, <a1:i4, a2:i6>)
• o4 = (i4, atom, 10)
• o5 = (i5, atom, 10)
• o6 = (i6, atom, 20)

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

• In this example, the objects o1 and o2 have equal states, since

their states at the atomic level are the same but the values are
reached through distinct objects o4 and o5
• However, the states of objects o1 and o3 are identical, even
though the objects themselves are not because they have distinct
OIDs
• Similarly, although the states of o4 and o5 are identical, the
actual objects o4 and o5 are equal but not identical, because they
have distinct OIDs

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 Object Identity, Object Structure, and
Type Constructors

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 Encapsulation of Operations, Methods,
and Persistence
• Encapsulation
• One of the main characteristics of OO languages and systems
• Related to the concepts of abstract data types and information
hiding in programming languages

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 Encapsulation of Operations, Methods,
and Persistence
• Specifying Object Behavior via Class Operations:
• The main idea is to define the behavior of a type of object based
on the operations that can be externally applied to objects of that
type
• In general, the implementation of an operation can be specified in
a general-purpose programming language that provides flexibility and
power in defining the operations

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 Encapsulation of Operations, Methods,
and Persistence
• Specifying Object Behavior via Class Operations (contd.):
• For database applications, the requirement that all objects be
completely encapsulated is too stringent
• One way of relaxing this requirement is to divide the
structure of an object into visible and hidden attributes
(instance variables)

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 Encapsulation of Operations, Methods, and Persistence

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 Encapsulation of Operations, Methods,
and Persistence
• Specifying Object Persistence via Naming and Reachability:
• Naming Mechanism:
• Assign an object a unique persistent name through which it can be
retrieved by this and other programs
• Reachability Mechanism:
• Make the object reachable from some persistent object
• An object B is said to be reachable from an object A if a sequence of
references in the object graph lead from object A to object B

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 Encapsulation of Operations, Methods,
and Persistence
• Specifying Object Persistence via Naming and Reachability (contd.):

• In traditional database models such as relational model or ER model, all

objects are assumed to be persistent

• In OO approach, a class declaration specifies only the type and

operations for a class of objects. The user must separately define a
persistent object of type set (DepartmentSet) or list
(DepartmentList) whose value is the collection of references to all
persistent DEPARTMENT objects

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 Encapsulation of Operations, Methods, and Persistence

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Type and Class Hierarchies and
Inheritance
• Type (class) Hierarchy
• A type in its simplest form can be defined by giving it a type name
and then listing the names of its visible (public) functions
• When specifying a type in this section, we use the following
format, which does not specify arguments of functions, to
simplify the discussion:
• TYPE_NAME: function, function, . . . , function

• Example:
• PERSON: Name, Address, Birthdate, Age, SSN

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Type and Class Hierarchies and
Inheritance
• Subtype:
• When the designer or user must create a new type that is
similar but not identical to an already defined type

• Supertype:
• It inherits all the functions (attributes and methods) of the
subtype

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Type and Class Hierarchies and
Inheritance
• Example (1):
• PERSON: Name, Address, Birthdate, Age, SSN
• EMPLOYEE: Name, Address, Birthdate, Age, SSN, Salary,
HireDate, Seniority
• STUDENT: Name, Address, Birthdate, Age, SSN, Major, GPA
• OR:
• EMPLOYEE subtype-of PERSON: Salary, HireDate, Seniority
• STUDENT subtype-of PERSON: Major, GPA

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Type and Class Hierarchies and
Inheritance
• Example (2):
• Consider a type that describes objects in plane geometry, which may be
defined as follows:
• GEOMETRY_OBJECT: Shape, Area, ReferencePoint
• Now suppose that we want to define a number of subtypes for the
GEOMETRY_OBJECT type, as follows:
• RECTANGLE subtype-of GEOMETRY_OBJECT: Width, Height
• TRIANGLE subtype-of GEOMETRY_OBJECT: Side1, Side2,
Angle
• CIRCLE subtype-of GEOMETRY_OBJECT: Radius

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Type and Class Hierarchies and
Inheritance
• Example (2) (contd.):
• An alternative way of declaring these three subtypes is to
specify the value of the Shape attribute as a condition that
must be satisfied for objects of each subtype:
• RECTANGLE subtype-of GEOMETRY_OBJECT
(Shape=‘rectangle’): Width, Height
• TRIANGLE subtype-of GEOMETRY_OBJECT
(Shape=‘triangle’): Side1, Side2, Angle
• CIRCLE subtype-of GEOMETRY_OBJECT
(Shape=‘circle’): Radius

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Type and Class Hierarchies and
Inheritance
• Extents:
• In most OO databases, the collection of objects in an extent
has the same type or class
• However, since the majority of OO databases support types, we
assume that extents are collections of objects of the same type
for the remainder of this section
• Persistent Collection:
• This holds a collection of objects that is stored permanently in
the database and hence can be accessed and shared by multiple
programs
• Transient Collection:
• This exists temporarily during the execution of a program but is
not kept when the program terminates
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 Complex Objects
• Unstructured Complex Object:
• These is provided by a DBMS and permits the storage and
retrieval of large objects that are needed by the database
application
• Typical examples of such objects are bitmap images and long text
strings (such as documents); they are also known as binary large
objects, or BLOBs for short
• This has been the standard way by which Relational DBMSs
have dealt with supporting complex objects, leaving the
operations on those objects outside the RDBMS

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Complex Objects
• Structured Complex Object:
• This differs from an unstructured complex object in that
the object’s structure is defined by repeated application
of the type constructors provided by the OODBMS
• Hence, the object structure is defined and known to the
OODBMS
• The OODBMS also defines methods or operations on it

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Other Objected-Oriented Concepts
• Polymorphism (Operator Overloading):
• This concept allows the same operator name or symbol to
be bound to two or more different implementations of
the operator, depending on the type of objects to which
the operator is applied
• For example + can be:
• Addition in integers
• Concatenation in strings (of characters)

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Other Objected-Oriented Concepts
• Multiple Inheritance and Selective Inheritance
• Multiple inheritance in a type hierarchy occurs when a
certain subtype T is a subtype of two (or more) types and
hence inherits the functions (attributes and methods) of both
supertypes
• For example, we may create a subtype
ENGINEERING_MANAGER that is a subtype of both
MANAGER and ENGINEER
• This leads to the creation of a type lattice rather than a type
hierarchy
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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Other Objected-Oriented Concepts
• Versions and Configurations
• Many database applications that use OO systems require
the existence of several versions of the same object
• There may be more than two versions of an object
• Configuration:
• A configuration of the complex object is a collection
consisting of one version of each module arranged in such
a way that the module versions in the configuration are
compatible and together form a valid version of the complex object

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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Summary
• Object Identity:
• Objects have unique identities that are independent of their
attribute values
• Type Constructors:
• Complex object structures can be constructed by
recursively applying a set of basic constructors, such as
tuple, set, list, and bag
• Encapsulation Of Operations:
• Both the object structure and the operations that can be
applied to objects are included in the object class
definitions
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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Summary
• Programming Language Compatibility:
• Both persistent and transient objects are handled uniformly.
Objects are made persistent by being attached to a persistent
collection
• Type Hierarchies And Inheritance:
• Object types can be specified by using a type hierarchy, which
allows the inheritance of both attributes and methods of
previously defined types
• Extents:
• All persistent objects of a particular type can be stored in an
extent. Extents corresponding to a type hierarchy have set/subset
constraints enforced on them 46
Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Summary
• Support For Complex Objects:
• Both structured and unstructured complex objects can be
stored and manipulated
• Polymorphism And Operator Overloading:
• Operations and method names can be overloaded to apply
to different object types with different implementations
• Versioning:
• Some OO systems provide support for maintaining several
versions of the same object
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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 Contemporary Status
• OODB market growing very slowly these days
• O-O ideas are being used in a large number of applications,
without explicitly using the OODB platform to store data
• Growth:
• O-O tools for modeling and analysis, O-O Programming
Languages like Java and C++
• Compromise Solution Proposed:
• Object Relational DB Management (Informix Universal
Server, Oracle 10i, IBM’s UDB, DB2/II …)
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Estifanos T. (MSc in Computer Networking) Lecture 1: Concepts for Object-Oriented Databases 6/29/2018
 End Of
Chapter One

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