Realizing a temporal complex-object data model

Abstract

Support for temporal data continues to be a requirement posed by many applications such as VLSI design and CAD, but also in conventional applications like banking and sales. Furthermore, the strong demand for complex-object support is known as an inherent fact in design applications, and also emerges for advance “conventional” applications. Thus, new advanced database management systems should include both features, i.e. should support temporal complex-objects. In this paper, we present such a temporal complex-object data model. The central notion of our temporal complex-object data model is a time slice, representing one state of a complex object. We explain the mapping of time slices onto the complex objects supported by the MAD model (which we use for an example of a non-temporal complex-object data model) as well as the transformation process of operations on temporal complex-objects into MAD model operations. Thereby, the basic properties of the MAD model are a prerequisite for our approach. For example, time slices can only be directly stored, if non-disjunct (i.e. over-lapping) complex objects are easily handled in the underlying complex-object data model.