CHAPTER 12

Object and Object-Relational

Databases

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 1

Chapter 12 Outline
 Overview of Object Database Concepts
 Object-Relational Features
 Object Database Extensions to SQL
 ODMG Object Model and the Object Definition
Language ODL
 Object Database Conceptual Design
 The Object Query Language OQL
 Overview of the C++ Language Binding

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 2

Object and Object-Relational
Databases
 Object databases (ODB)
 Object data management systems (ODMS)
 Meet some of the needs of more complex
applications
 Specify:
 Structure of complex objects
 Operations that can be applied to these objects

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 3

Overview of Object Database
Concepts
 Introduction to object-oriented concepts and
features
 Origins in OO programming languages
 Object has two components:
 State (value) and behavior (operations)
 Instance variables (attributes)
 Hold values that define internal state of object
 Operation is defined in two parts:
 Signature (interface) and implementation (method)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 4

Overview of Object Database
Concepts (cont’d.)
 Inheritance
 Permits specification of new types or classes that
inherit much of their structure and/or operations
from previously defined types or classes
 Operator overloading
 Operation’s ability to be applied to different types of
objects
 Operation name may refer to several distinct
implementations

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 5

Object Identity, and Objects versus
Literals
 Object has Unique identity
 Implemented via a unique, system-generated
object identifier (OID)
 Immutable
 Most OO database systems allow for the
representation of both objects and literals (simple
or complex values)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 6

Complex Type Structures for Objects
and Literals
 Structure of arbitrary complexity
 Contain all necessary information that describes
object or literal
 Nesting type constructors
 Generate complex type from other types
 Type constructors (type generators):
 Atom (basic data type – int, string, etc.)
 Struct (or tuple)
 Collection

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 7

Complex Type Structures for Objects
and Literals (cont’d.)
 Collection types:
 Set
 Bag
 List
 Array
 Dictionary
 Object definition language (ODL)
 Used to define object types for a particular
database application

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 8

Figure 12.1 Specifying the object types EMPLOYEE, DATE, and DEPARTMENT
using type constructors.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 9

Figure 12.2 Adding operations to the definitions of EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 10

Encapsulation of Operations
 Encapsulation
 Related to abstract data types
 Define behavior of a class of object based on
operations that can be externally applied
 External users only aware of interface of the
operations
 Can divide structure of object into visible and
hidden attributes

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 11

Encapsulation of Operations

 Constructor operation
 Used to create a new object
 Destructor operation
 Used to destroy (delete) an object
 Modifier operations
 Modify the state of an object
 Retrieve operation
 Dot notation to apply operations to object

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 12

Persistence of Objects

 Transient objects
 Exist in executing program
 Disappear once program terminates
 Persistent objects
 Stored in database, persist after program termination
 Naming mechanism: object assigned a unique name
in object base, user finds object by its name
 Reachability: object referenced from other persistent
objects, object located through references

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 13

Figure 12.3 Creating persistent objects by naming and reachability.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 14

Type (Class) Hierarchies and
Inheritance
 Inheritance
 Definition of new types based on other predefined
types
 Leads to type (or class) hierarchy
 Type: type name and list of visible (public)
functions (attributes or operations)
 Format:
 TYPE_NAME: function, function, ...,
function

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 15

Type (Class) Hierarchies and
Inheritance (cont’d.)
 Subtype
 Useful when creating a new type that is similar but
not identical to an already defined type
 Subtype inherits functions
 Additional (local or specific) functions in subtype
 Example:
 EMPLOYEE subtype-of PERSON: Salary,
Hire_date, Seniority
 STUDENT subtype-of PERSON: Major, Gpa

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 16

Type (Class) Hierarchies and
Inheritance (cont’d.)
 Extent
 A named persistent object to hold collection of all
persistent objects for a class
 Persistent collection
 Stored permanently in the database
 Transient collection
 Exists temporarily during the execution of a
program (e.g. query result)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 17

Other Object-Oriented Concepts
 Polymorphism of operations
 Also known as operator overloading
 Allows same operator name or symbol to be
bound to two or more different implementations
 Type of objects determines which operator is
applied
 Multiple inheritance
 Subtype inherits functions (attributes and
operations) of more than one supertype

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 18

Summary of Object Database
Concepts
 Object identity
 Type constructors (type generators)
 Encapsulation of operations
 Programming language compatibility
 Type (class) hierarchies and inheritance
 Extents
 Polymorphism and operator overloading

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 19

Object-Relational Features:
Object DB Extensions to SQL
 Type constructors (generators)
 Specify complex types using UDT
 Mechanism for specifying object identity
 Encapsulation of operations
 Provided through user-defined types (UDTs)
 Inheritance mechanisms
 Provided using keyword UNDER

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 20

User-Defined Types (UDTs) and
Complex Structures for Objects
 UDT syntax:
 CREATE TYPE <type name> AS
(<component declarations>);
 Can be used to create a complex type for an
attribute (similar to struct – no operations)
 Or: can be used to create a type as a basis for a
table of objects (similar to class – can have
operations)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 21

User-Defined Types and Complex
Structures for Objects (cont’d.)

 Array type – to specify collections

 Reference array elements using []
 CARDINALITY function
 Return the current number of elements in an array
 Early SQL had only array for collections
 Later versions of SQL added other collection
types (set, list, bag, array, etc.)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 22

Object Identifiers Using Reference
Types
 Reference type
 Create unique object identifiers (OIDs)
 Can specify system-generated object identifiers
 Alternatively can use primary key as OID as in
traditional relational model
 Examples:
 REF IS SYSTEM GENERATED
 REF IS <OID_ATTRIBUTE>
<VALUE_GENERATION_METHOD> ;

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 23

Creating Tables Based on the UDTs
 INSTANTIABLE
 Specify that UDT is instantiable
 The user can then create one or more tables
based on the UDT
 If keyword INSTANTIABLE is left out, can use
UDT only as attribute data type – not as a basis for
a table of objects

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 24

Encapsulation of Operations
 User-defined type
 Specify methods (or operations) in addition to the
attributes
 Format:
CREATE TYPE <TYPE-NAME> (
<LIST OF COMPONENT ATTRIBUTES AND THEIR TYPES>
<DECLARATION OF FUNCTIONS (METHODS)>
);

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 25

Figure 12.4a Illustrating some of the object features of SQL. Using UDTs as types
for attributes such as Address and Phone.

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 26

Figure 12.4b Illustrating some of the object features of SQL. Specifying UDT for
PERSON_TYPE.

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 27

Specifying Type Inheritance
 NOT FINAL:
 The keyword NOT FINAL indicates that subtypes
can be created for that type
 UNDER
 The keyword UNDER is used to create a subtype

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 28

Figure 12.4c Illustrating some of the object features of SQL. Specifying UDTs for
STUDENT_TYPE and EMPLOYEE_TYPE as two subtypes of PERSON_TYPE.

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 29

Figure 12.4c (continued) Illustrating some of the object features of SQL.
Specifying UDTs for STUDENT_TYPE and EMPLOYEE_TYPE as two subtypes of
PERSON_TYPE.

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 30

Specifying Type Inheritance
 Type inheritance rules:
 All attributes/operations are inherited
 Order of supertypes in UNDER clause determines
inheritance hierarchy
 Instance (object) of a subtype can be used in
every context in which a supertype instance used
 Subtype can redefine any function defined in
supertype

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 31

Creating Tables based on UDT

 UDT must be INSTANTIABLE

 One or more tables can be created
 Table inheritance:
 UNDER keyword can also be used to specify
supertable/subtable inheritance
 Objects in subtable must be a subset of the
objects in the supertable

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 32

Figure 12.4d Illustrating some of the object features of SQL. Creating tables
based on some of the UDTs, and illustrating table inheritance.

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 33

Specifying Relationships via
Reference
 Component attribute of one tuple may be a
reference to a tuple of another table
 Specified using keyword REF
 Keyword SCOPE
 Specify name of table whose tuples referenced
 Dot notation
 Build path expressions
 –>
 Used for dereferencing

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 34

Figure 12.4e Illustrating some of the object features of SQL. Specifying
relationships using REF and SCOPE.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 35

Summary of SQL Object Extensions
 UDT to specify complex types
 INSTANTIABLE specifies if UDT can be used to
create tables; NOT FINAL specifies if UDT can be
inherited by a subtype
 REF for specifying object identity and inter-
object references
 Encapsulation of operations in UDT
 Keyword UNDER to specify type inheritance and
table inheritance

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 36

ODMG Object Model and Object
Definition Language ODL
 ODMG object model
 Data model for object definition language (ODL)
and object query language (OQL)
 Objects and Literals
 Basic building blocks of the object model
 Object has five aspects:
 Identifier, name, lifetime, structure, and
creation
 Literal
 Value that does not have an object identifier
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 37
The ODMG Object Model and the ODL
(cont’d.)
 Behavior refers to operations
 State refers to properties (attributes)
 Interface
 Specifies only behavior of an object type
 Typically noninstantiable
 Class
 Specifies both state (attributes) and behavior
(operations) of an object type
 Instantiable

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 38

Inheritance in the Object Model of
ODMG
 Behavior inheritance
 Also known as IS-A or interface inheritance
 Specified by the colon (:) notation
 EXTENDS inheritance
 Specified by keyword extends
 Inherit both state and behavior strictly among
classes
 Multiple inheritance via extends not permitted

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 39

Built-in Interfaces and Classes in the
Object Model
 Collection objects
 Inherit the basic Collection interface
 i = o.create_iterator()
 Creates an iterator object for the collection
 To loop over each object in a collection
 Collection objects further specialized into:
 set, list, bag, array, and dictionary

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 40

Figure 12.6 Inheritance hierarchy for the built-in interfaces of the object model.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 41

Atomic (User-Defined) Objects
 Specified using keyword class in ODL
 Attribute
 Property; describes data in an object
 Relationship
 Specifies inter-object references
 Keyword inverse
 Single conceptual relationship in inverse directions
 Operation signature:
 Operation name, argument types, return value

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 42

Figure 12.7 The attributes, relationships, and operations in a class definition.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 43

Extents, Keys, and Factory Objects
 Extent
 A persistent named collection object that contains
all persistent objects of class
 Key
 One or more properties whose values are unique
for each object in extent of a class
 Factory object
 Used to generate or create individual objects via
its operations

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 44

Object Definition Language ODL
 Support semantic constructs of ODMG object
model
 Independent of any particular programming
language
 Example on next slides of a UNIVERSITY
database
 Graphical diagrammatic notation is a variation of
EER diagrams

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 45

Figure 12.9a An example of a database schema. Graphical notation for
representing ODL schemas.

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 46

Figure 12.9b An example of a database schema. A graphical object database
schema for part of the UNIVERSITY database (GRADE and DEGREE classes are not
shown).

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 47

Figure 12.10 Possible ODL schema for the UNIVERSITY database in Figure
12.9(b).

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 48

Figure 12.10 (continued) Possible ODL schema for the UNIVERSITY database in
Figure 12.9(b).

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 49

Interface Inheritance in ODL
 Next example illustrates interface inheritance in
ODL

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 50

Figure 12.11a An illustration of interface inheritance via “:”. Graphical schema
representation.

continued on next slide

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 51

Figure 12.11b An illustration of interface inheritance via “:”. Corresponding
interface and class definitions in ODL.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 52

Object Database Conceptual Design
 Differences between conceptual design of ODB
and RDB, handling of:
 Relationships
 Inheritance
 Philosophical difference between relational model
and object model of data
 In terms of behavioral specification

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 53

Mapping an EER Schema to an ODB
Schema
 Create ODL class for each EER entity type
 Add relationship properties for each binary
relationship
 Include appropriate operations for each class
 ODL class that corresponds to a subclass in the
EER schema
 Inherits type and methods of its superclass in ODL
schema

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 54

Mapping an EER Schema to an ODB
Schema (cont’d.)
 Weak entity types
 Mapped same as regular entity types
 Categories (union types)
 Difficult to map to ODL
 An n-ary relationship with degree n > 2
 Map into a separate class, with appropriate
references to each participating class

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 55

The Object Query Language OQL
 Query language proposed for ODMG object
model
 Simple OQL queries, database entry points, and
iterator variables
 Syntax: select ... from ... where ... structure
 Entry point: named persistent object
 Iterator variable: define whenever a collection is
referenced in an OQL query

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 56

Query Results and Path Expressions
 Result of a query
 Any type that can be expressed in ODMG object
model
 OQL orthogonal with respect to specifying path
expressions
 Attributes, relationships, and operation names
(methods) can be used interchangeably within the
path expressions

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 57

Other Features of OQL
 Named query
 Specify identifier of named query
 OQL query will return collection as its result
 If user requires that a query only return a single
element use element operator
 Aggregate operators
 Membership and quantification over a collection

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 58

Other Features of OQL (cont’d.)
 Special operations for ordered collections
 Group by clause in OQL
 Similar to the corresponding clause in SQL
 Provides explicit reference to the collection of
objects within each group or partition
 Having clause
 Used to filter partitioned sets

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 59

Overview of the C++ Language
Binding in the ODMG Standard
 Specifies how ODL constructs are mapped to
C++ constructs
 Uses prefix d_ for class declarations that deal
with database concepts
 Template classes
 Specified in library binding
 Overloads operation new so that it can be used to
create either persistent or transient objects

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 60

Summary
 Overview of concepts utilized in object databases
 Object identity and identifiers; encapsulation of
operations; inheritance; complex structure of
objects through nesting of type constructors; and
how objects are made persistent
 Description of the ODMG object model and object
query language (OQL)
 Overview of the C++ language binding

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 12- 61