Semantics and implementation of schema evolution in object-oriented databases

Authors: 
Banerjee, J.; Kim, W.; Kim, H.; Korth, H. F.
Author: 
Banerjee, J
Kim, W
Kim, H
Korth, H
Year: 
1987
Venue: 
Proc. Sigmod 1987
DOI: 
doi.acm.org/10.1145/38713.38748
Citations: 
849
Citations range: 
500 - 999

Object-oriented programming is well-suited to such data-intensive application domains as CAD/CAM, AI, and OIS (office information systems) with multimedia documents. At MCC we have built a prototype object-oriented database system, called ORION. It adds persistence and sharability to objects created and manipulated in applications implemented in an object-oriented programming environment. One of the important requirements of these applications is schema evolution, that is, the ability to dynamically make a wide variety of changes to the database schema. In this paper, following a brief review of the object-oriented data model that we support in ORION, we establish a framework for supporting schema evolution, define the semantics of schema evolution, and discuss its implementation.