This paper presents an equational formulation of an object-oriented
data model. In this model, a database is represented as a system of
equations over a set of oid's, and a database query is a
transformation of a system of equations into another system of
equations. During the query processing, our model maintains an
equivalence relation over oid's that relates oid's
corresponding to the same “real-world entity.” By this mechanism,
the model achieves a declarative set-based query language and views
for objects with identity. Moreover, the query primitives are designed
so that queries including object traversal can be evaluated in a
data-parallel fashion.
object-oriented database, query language, restructuring, declarative,
view, parallel processing, entity, recursive type, graph structure,
object transformation
Published in Proc. of ACM OOPSLA, pp.1-18, Oct. 1996, San Jose, CA.