An Extended Data Management Facility for a General Purpose Time-Sharing System
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Abstract
Contemporary software forces users to choose between general purpose operating systems with primitive data management facilities, and special-purpose data management systems with little support of programing languages and interactive computation. This is because integrated systems combining these two features have not been available. This report presents the design of an integrated system known as the Extended Data Management Facility (EDMF) which combines the facilities of the RCA Time Sharing Operating System (TSOS) with novel data-handling and access-control capabilities. The novelties of the EDMF include a generalized file structure, a generalized record organization, an efficient record retrieval algorithm, and access control to files, records within files, and fields within records. A comprehensive set of on-line commands and system macroinstructions are provided for defining and processing files, records, and fields, and for access control. Special programming aids are also provided for defining blocks of commands, called procedures, for later execution.