Technical Reports (CIS)
Document Type
Technical Report
Date of this Version
September 1998
Abstract
As a generalization of inclusion dependencies that are found in relational databases, word constraints have been studied for semistructured data [6] as well as for an object-oriented model [10]. In both contexts, it is assumed that each data entity has a unique identity, and two entities are equal if and only if they have the same identify. In this setting the decidability of the implication and finite implication problems for word constraints has been established. A question left open is whether these problems are still decidable in the context of an object-oriented model M≈ which supports complex values with nested structures and complex value equality. This paper provides an answer to that question. We characterize a schema in M≈ in terms of a type constraint and an equality constraint, and investigate the interaction between these constraints and word constraints. We show that in the presence of equality and type constraint, the implication and finite implication problems for word constraints are also decidable by giving a small model argument.
DownloadDate Posted: 30 October 2006
Comments
University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MS-CIS-98-32.