Chapter 22: Object-Based Databases
Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.
©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
Chapter 22: Object-Based Databases
Complex Data Types and Object Orientation
Structured Data Types and Inheritance in SQL
Table Inheritance
Array and Multiset Types in SQL
Object Identity and Reference Types in SQL
Implementing O-R Features
Persistent Programming Languages
Comparison of Object-Oriented and Object-Relational Databases
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Object-Relational Data Models
Extend the relational data model by including object orientation and constructs
(e.g., constructor) to deal with added data types.
Allow attributes of tuples to have complex types, including non-atomic values
such as nested relations. This violates the First Normal Form (1NF), which
requires that all attributes contain only atomic (indivisible) values.
Preserve relational foundations, particularly declarative access to data, while
extending modelling power.
Upward compatibility with existing relational languages.
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Complex Data Types
Motivation:
Permit non-atomic domains (atomic indivisible)
Example of non-atomic domain: set of integers,or set of tuples
Allows more intuitive modelling for applications with complex data
Intuitive definition:
allow relations whenever we allow atomic (scalar) values — relations
within relations
Retains mathematical foundation of relational model
Violates first normal form.
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Example of a Nested Relation
Example: library information system
Each book has
title,
a list (array) of authors,
Publisher, with subfields name and branch, and
a set of keywords
Non-1NF relation books
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
4NF Decomposition of Nested Relation
Deals with multi-valued dependencies. It is used when a table contains
independent multi-valued attributes that lead to redundancy.
Nested Relations are tables that contain non-atomic (multi-valued) attributes,
often violating 1NF.
4NF requires that a relation does not have non-trivial multi-valued
dependencies other than a candidate key.
Decomposition involves breaking down nested relations into multiple smaller
relations to eliminate redundancy.
Suppose for simplicity that title uniquely identifies a book
In real world ISBN is a unique identifier
Decompose books into 4NF using the schemas:
(title, author, position )
(title, keyword )
(title, pub-name, pub-branch )
4NF design requires users to include joins in their queries.
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Complex Types and SQL
Extensions introduced in SQL:1999 to support complex types:
Collection and large object types
Nested relations are an example of collection types
Structured types
Nested record structures like composite attributes
Inheritance
Object orientation
Including object identifiers and references
Not fully implemented in any database system currently
But some features are present in each of the major commercial
database systems
Read the manual of your database system to see what it supports
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Structured Types and Inheritance in SQL
Structured types (a.k.a. user-defined types) can be declared and used in SQL
create type Name as(
firstname varchar(20),
lastname varchar(20))
final
create type Address as(
street varchar(20),
city varchar(20),
zipcode varchar(20))
not final
Note: final and not final indicate whether subtypes can be created
Structured types can be used to create tables with composite attributes
create table person (
name Name,
address Address,
dateOfBirth date)
Dot notation used to reference components: name.firstname
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Structured Types (cont.)
User-defined row types
create type PersonType as (
name Name,
address Address,
dateOfBirth date)
not final
Can then create a table whose rows are a user-defined type
create table customer of CustomerType
Alternative using unnamed row types.
create table person_r (
name row(firstname varchar(20),
lastname varchar(20)),
address row(street varchar(20),
city varchar(20),
zipcode varchar(20)),
dateOfBirth date)
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Methods
Can add a method declaration with a structured type.
method ageOnDate (onDate date)
returns interval year
Method body is given separately.
create instance method ageOnDate (onDate date)
returns interval year
for CustomerType
begin
return onDate - self.dateOfBirth;
end
We can now find the age of each customer:
select name.lastname, ageOnDate (current_date)
from customer
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Constructor Functions
Constructor functions are used to create values of structured types
E.g.
create function Name(firstname varchar(20), lastname varchar(20))
returns Name
begin
set self.firstname = firstname;
set self.lastname = lastname;
end
To create a value of type Name, we use
new Name(‘John’, ‘Smith’)
Normally used in insert statements
insert into Person values
(new Name(‘John’, ‘Smith),
new Address(’20 Main St’, ‘New York’, ‘11001’),
date ‘1960-8-22’);
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Type Inheritance
Suppose that we have the following type definition for people:
create type Person (
name varchar(20),
address varchar(20))
Using inheritance to define the student and teacher types
create type Student
under Person
(degree varchar(20),
department varchar(20))
create type Teacher
under Person
(salary integer,
department varchar(20))
Subtypes can redefine methods by using overriding method in place
of method in the method declaration
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Multiple Type Inheritance
SQL:1999 and SQL:2003 do not support multiple inheritance
If our type system supports multiple inheritance, we can define a type for
teaching assistant as follows:
create type Teaching Assistant
under Student, Teacher
To avoid a conflict between the two occurrences of department we can rename
them
create type Teaching Assistant
under
Student with (department as student_dept ),
Teacher with (department as teacher_dept )
Each value must have a most-specific type
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Table Inheritance
Tables created from subtypes can further be specified as subtables
E.g. create table people of Person;
create table students of Student under people;
create table teachers of Teacher under people;
Tuples added to a subtable are automatically visible to queries on the supertable
E.g. query on people also sees students and teachers.
Similarly updates/deletes on people also result in updates/deletes on subtables
To override this behaviour, use “only people” in query
Conceptually, multiple inheritance is possible with tables
e.g. teaching_assistants under students and teachers
But is not supported in SQL currently
So we cannot create a person (tuple in people) who is both a student and a
teacher
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Consistency Requirements for Subtables
Consistency requirements on subtables and supertables.
Each tuple of the supertable (e.g. people) can correspond to at most
one tuple in each of the subtables (e.g. students and teachers)
Additional constraint in SQL:1999:
All tuples corresponding to each other (that is, with the same values for
inherited attributes) must be derived from one tuple (inserted into one
table).
That is, each entity must have a most specific type
We cannot have a tuple in people corresponding to a tuple each in
students and teachers
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Array and Multiset Types in SQL
Example of array and multiset declaration:
create type Publisher as
(name varchar(20),
branch varchar(20));
create type Book as
(title varchar(20),
author_array varchar(20) array [10],
pub_date date,
publisher Publisher,
keyword-set varchar(20) multiset);
create table books of Book;
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Array construction
Creation of Collection Values
array [‘Silberschatz’,`Korth’,`Sudarshan’]
Multisets
multiset [‘computer’, ‘database’, ‘SQL’]
To create a tuple of the type defined by the books relation:
(‘Compilers’, array[`Smith’,`Jones’],
new Publisher (`McGraw-Hill’,`New York’),
multiset [`parsing’,`analysis’ ])
To insert the preceding tuple into the relation books
insert into books
values
(‘Compilers’, array[`Smith’,`Jones’],
new Publisher (`McGraw-Hill’,`New York’),
multiset [`parsing’,`analysis’ ]);
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Querying Collection-Valued Attributes
To find all books that have the word “database” as a keyword,
select title
from books
where ‘database’ in (unnest(keyword-set ))
We can access individual elements of an array by using indices
E.g.: If we know that a particular book has three authors, we could write:
select author_array[1], author_array[2], author_array[3]
from books
where title = `Database System Concepts’
To get a relation containing pairs of the form “title, author_name” for each book and
each author of the book
select B.title, A.author
from books as B, unnest (B.author_array) as A (author )
To retain ordering information we add a with ordinality clause
select B.title, A.author, A.position
from books as B, unnest (B.author_array) with ordinality as
A (author, position )
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Unnesting
The transformation of a nested relation into a form with fewer (or no) relation-valued
attributes us called unnesting.
E.g.
select title, A as author, publisher.name as pub_name,
publisher.branch as pub_branch, K.keyword
from books as B, unnest(B.author_array ) as A (author ),
unnest (B.keyword_set ) as K (keyword )
Result relation flat_books
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Nesting
Nesting is the opposite of unnesting, creating a collection-valued attribute
Nesting can be done in a manner similar to aggregation, but using the
function colect() in place of an aggregation operation, to create a multiset
To nest the flat_books relation on the attribute keyword:
select title, author, Publisher (pub_name, pub_branch ) as publisher,
collect (keyword) as keyword_set
from flat_books
groupby title, author, publisher
To nest on both authors and keywords:
select title, collect (author ) as author_set,
Publisher (pub_name, pub_branch) as publisher,
collect (keyword ) as keyword_set
from flat_books
group by title, publisher
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Nesting (Cont.)
Another approach to creating nested relations is to use subqueries in the
select clause, starting from the 4NF relation books4
select title,
array (select author
from authors as A
where A.title = B.title
order by A.position) as author_array,
Publisher (pub-name, pub-branch) as publisher,
multiset (select keyword
from keywords as K
where K.title = B.title) as keyword_set
from books4 as B
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Object-Identity and Reference Types
Define a type Department with a field name and a field head which is a reference to the
type Person, with table people as scope:
create type Department (
name varchar (20),
head ref (Person) scope people)
We can then create a table departments as follows
create table departments of Department
We can omit the declaration scope people from the type declaration and instead make an
addition to the create table statement:
create table departments of Department
(head with options scope people)
Referenced table must have an attribute that stores the identifier, called the self-
referential attribute
create table people of Person
ref is person_id system generated;
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Initializing Reference-Typed Values
To create a tuple with a reference value, we can first
create the tuple with a null reference and then set the
reference separately:
insert into departments
values (`CS’, null)
update departments
set head = (select p.person_id
from people as p
where name = `John’)
where name = `CS’
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
User Generated Identifiers
The type of the object-identifier must be specified as part of the type
definition of the referenced table, and
The table definition must specify that the reference is user generated
create type Person
(name varchar(20)
address varchar(20))
ref using varchar(20)
create table people of Person
ref is person_id user generated
When creating a tuple, we must provide a unique value for the
identifier:
insert into people (person_id, name, address ) values
(‘01284567’, ‘John’, `23 Coyote Run’)
We can then use the identifier value when inserting a tuple into
departments
Avoids need for a separate query to retrieve the identifier:
insert into departments
values(`CS’, `02184567’)
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
User Generated Identifiers (Cont.)
Can use an existing primary key value as the identifier:
create type Person
(name varchar (20) primary key,
address varchar(20))
ref from (name)
create table people of Person
ref is person_id derived
When inserting a tuple for departments, we can then use
insert into departments
values(`CS’,`John’)
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Implementing O-R Features
Similar to how E-R features are mapped onto relation schemas
Subtable implementation
Each table stores primary key and those attributes defined in that
table
or,
Each table stores both locally defined and inherited attributes
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Persistent Programming Languages
Languages extended with constructs to handle persistent data
Programmer can manipulate persistent data directly
no need to fetch it into memory and store it back to disk (unlike
embedded SQL)
Persistent objects:
Persistence by class - explicit declaration of persistence
Persistence by creation - special syntax to create persistent objects
Persistence by marking - make objects persistent after creation
Persistence by reachability - object is persistent if it is declared
explicitly to be so or is reachable from a persistent object
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Object-Relational Mapping
Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) systems built on top of traditional relational
databases
Implementor provides a mapping from objects to relations
Objects are purely transient, no permanent object identity
Objects can be retried from database
System uses mapping to fetch relevant data from relations and construct objects
Updated objects are stored back in database by generating corresponding
update/insert/delete statements
The Hibernate ORM system is widely used
described in Section 9.4.2
Provides API to start/end transactions, fetch objects, etc
Provides query language operating direcly on object model
queries translated to SQL
Limitations: overheads, especially for bulk updates
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Comparison of O-O and O-R Databases
Relational systems
simple data types, powerful query languages, high protection.
Persistent-programming-language-based OODBs
complex data types, integration with programming language, high performance.
Object-relational systems
complex data types, powerful query languages, high protection.
Object-relational mapping systems
complex data types integrated with programming language, but built as a layer
on top of a relational database system
Note: Many real systems blur these boundaries
E.g. persistent programming language built as a wrapper on a relational
database offers first two benefits, but may have poor performance.
Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 22.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
End of Chapter 22
Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.
©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
