A language for databases with sets, tuples, lists, object identity and structural inheritance is proposed. The core language is logic-based with a fixpoint semantics. Methods with overloading and methods evaluated externally providing extensibility of the language are considered. Other important issues such as updates and the introduction of explicit control are discussed. 1 INTRODUCTION The success of the relational database model [19, 38, 27] is certainly due to technological advances such as fast query processing or reliable concurrency control. However, we believe that a major factor in that success has been the existence of simple-to-use languages allowing the definition and manipulation of data. This has to be remembered while considering future generations of database systems. Object-oriented database systems are now being developed, e.g., [15, 12, 22, 39, 36]. An object-oriented approach [24] is used to answer the needs of a much wider variety of applications. Most of th...

We investigate queries in the presence of external functions with arbitrary inputs and outputs (atomic values, sets, nested sets etc). We propose a new notion of domain independence for queries with external functions which, in contrast to previous work, can also be applied to query languages with fixpoints or other kinds of iterators. Next, we define two new notions of computable queries with external functions, and prove that they are equivalent, under the assumption that the external functions are total. Thus, our definition of computable queries with external functions is robust. Finally, based on the equivalence result, we give examples of complete query languages with external functions. A byproduct of the equivalence result is the fact that Relational Machines are complete for complex objects: it was known that they are not complete over flat relations. 1 Introduction Database functionalities are important both for practical and for theoretical purposes. E.g. the system O 2 of ...

The pure object-oriented data model is not convenient for describing inter-object relationships and can result in very involved and hard to understand queries. Augmenting the object-oriented model with declarative description of the relationships between objects using conditional rewrite rules is a convenient way to address the problem. Under this scheme, inter-object relationships are described declaratively using conditional rewrite rules, and queries are posed also declaratively in the form of equations to be solved. In this paper, we describe an experimental system written in Smalltalk which demonstrates the feasibility and appeal of this approach. Various examples are also given.

We investigate queries in the presence of external functions with arbitrary inputs and outputs (atomic values, sets, nested sets etc). We propose a new notion of domain independence for queries with external functions which, in contrast to previous work, can also be applied to query languages with xpoints or other kinds of iterators. Next, we de ne two new notions of computable queries with external functions, and prove that they are equivalent, under the assumption that the external functions are total. Thus, our de nition of computable queries with external functions is robust. Finally, based on the equivalence result, we giveexamples of complete query languages with external functions. A byproduct of the equivalence result is the fact that Relational Machines are complete for complex objects: it was known that they are not complete over at relations. 1