CHAPTER - 9

OBJECT ORIENTED DATABASES

9.1 NEED FOR COMPLEX DATA TYPES

 Traditional database applications in data processing had conceptually simple data
types

 Relatively few data types, first normal form holds

 Complex data types have grown more important in recent years

 E.g. Addresses can be viewed as a

 Single string, or

 Separate attributes for each part, or

 Composite attributes (which are not in first normal form)

 E.g. it is often convenient to store multivalued attributes as-is, without

creating a separate relation to store the values in first normal form

 Applications

 computer-aided design, computer-aided software engineering

 multimedia and image databases, and document/hypertext databases.

9.2 OBJECT-ORIENTED DATA MODEL

 Loosely speaking, an object corresponds to an entity in the E-R model.

 The object-oriented paradigm is based on encapsulating code and data related to

an object into single unit.

 The object-oriented data model is a logical data model (like the E-R model).

 Adaptation of the object-oriented programming paradigm (e.g., Smalltalk, C++) to

database systems.
 Object Oriented Databases 9.2

9.2.1 Object Structure

 An object has associated with it:

 A set of variables that contain the data for the object. The value of each
variable is itself an object.

 A set of messages to which the object responds; each message may have
zero, one, or more parameters.

 A set of methods, each of which is a body of code to implement a message;

a method returns a value as the response to the message

 The physical representation of data is visible only to the implementor of the object

 Messages and responses provide the only external interface to an object.

 The term message does not necessarily imply physical message passing. Messages
can be implemented as procedure invocations.

9.2.2 Messages and Methods

 Methods are programs written in general-purpose language with the following

features

 only variables in the object itself may be referenced directly

 data in other objects are referenced only by sending messages.

 Methods can be read-only or update methods

 Read-only methods do not change the value of the object

 Strictly speaking, every attribute of an entity must be represented by a variable and

two methods, one to read and the other to update the attribute

 e.g., the attribute address is represented by a variable address and two

messages get-address and set-address.

 For convenience, many object-oriented data models permit direct access to

variables of other objects.

9.2.3 Object Classes

9.3 Database Management Systems

 Similar objects are grouped into a class; each such object is called an instance of its
class

 All objects in a class have the same

 Variables, with the same types

 message interface

 methods

The may differ in the values assigned to variables

 Example: Group objects for people into a person class

 Classes are analogous to entity sets in the E-R model

Class Definition Example

class employee {
/*Variables */
string name;
string address;
date start-date;
int salary;
/* Messages */
int annual-salary();
string get-name();
string get-address();
int set-address(string new-address);
int employment-length();
};

Fig. 9.1 Definition of the class employee

 Methods to read and set the other variables are also needed with strict encapsulation

 Methods are defined separately

string get-address( ) {
return address;
}
int set-address(string new-address) {
 Object Oriented Databases 9.4

address = new-address;
}

While the method employment-length( ) would be defined as:

int employment-length() {
return today( ) – start-date;
}

9.2.4 Inheritance

 E.g., class of bank customers is similar to class of bank employees, although there
are differences

 both share some variables and messages, e.g., name and address.

 But there are variables and messages specific to each class e.g., salary for
employees and credit-rating for customers.

 Every employee is a person; thus employee is a specialization of person

 Similarly, customer is a specialization of person.

 Create classes person, employee and customer

 variables/messages applicable to all persons associated with class person.

 variables/messages specific to employees associated with class employee;

similarly for customer

 Place classes into a specialization/IS-A hierarchy

 variables/messages belonging to class person are inherited by class

employee as well as customer

 Result is a class hierarchy

9.5 Database Management Systems

Fig. 9.1 Class hierarchy for the bank example

 Note analogy with ISA Hierarchy in the E-R model

Class Hierarchy Definition

class person{
string name;
string address:
string get-name( );
string get-address( );
int set-address(string new-address);
};
class customer isa person {
int credit-rating;
};
class employee isa person {
date start-date;
int salary;
int annual-salary( )
int employment-length( );
};
class officer isa employee {
int office-number,
int expense-account-number,
};
class teller isa employee {
int hours-per-week;
int station-number;
};
Class secretary isa employee {
int hours-per-week;
string manager;
};
 Full variable list for objects in the class officer:

 office-number, expense-account-number: defined locally

 start-date, salary: inherited from employee

 Object Oriented Databases 9.6

 name, address: inherited from person

 Methods inherited similar to variables.

 Substitutability — any method of a class, say person, can be invoked equally well with
any object belonging to any subclass, such as subclass officer of person.

 Class extent: set of all objects in the class. Two options:

1. Class extent of employee includes all officer, teller and secretary objects.

2. Class extent of employee includes only employee objects that are not in a subclass
such as officer, teller, or secretary

 This is the usual choice in OO systems

 Can access extents of subclasses to find all objects of

subtypes of employee

9.2.5 Multiple Inheritances

 With multiple inheritances a class may have more than one superclass.

 The class/subclass relationship is represented by a directed acyclic graph

(DAG)

 Particularly useful when objects can be classified in more than one way,
which are independent of each other

Example of Multiple Inheritance

Fig. 9.2 Class DAG for banking example.

9.7 Database Management Systems

 A class inherits variables and methods from all its superclasses

 There is potential for ambiguity when a variable/message N with the same name is
inherited from two super classes A and B

 No problem if the variable/message is defined in a shared superclass

 Otherwise, do one of the following

 flag as an error,

 rename variables (A.N and B.N)

 choose one.

More Examples of Multiple Inheritance

 Conceptually, an object can belong to each of several subclasses

 A person can play the roles of student, a teacher or footballPlayer, or any

combination of the three

 E.g., student teaching assistant who also play football

 Can use multiple inheritance to model “roles” of an object

 That is, allow an object to take on any one or more of a set of types

 But many systems insist an object should have a most-specific class

 That is, there must be one class that an object belongs to which is a
subclass of all other classes that the object belongs to

 Create subclasses such as student-teacher and student-teacher

footballPlayer for each combination.

 When many combinations are possible, creating subclasses for each

combination can become cumbersome.

9.2.6 Object Identity

 An object retains its identity even if some or all of the values of variables or
definitions of methods change over time.

 Object identity is a stronger notion of identity than in programming languages or

data models not based on object orientation.
 Object Oriented Databases 9.8

 Value – data value; e.g. primary key value used in relational systems.

 Name – supplied by user; used for variables in procedures.

 Built-in – identity built into data model or programming language.

 no user-supplied identifier is required.

 Is the form of identity used in object-oriented systems.

9.2.7 Object Identifiers

 Object identifiers used to uniquely identify objects

 Object identifiers are unique:

 no two objects have the same identifier

 each object has only one object identifier

 E.g., the spouse field of a person object may be an identifier of another

person object.

 can be stored as a field of an object, to refer to another object.

 Can be

 system generated (created by database) or

 external (such as social-security number)

 System generated identifiers:

 Are easier to use, but cannot be used across database systems

 May be redundant if unique identifier already exists

9.2.8 Object Containment

 Each component in a design may contain other components

 Can be modeled as containment of objects. Objects containing; other objects are

called composite objects.

 Multiple levels of containment create a containment hierarchy

 links interpreted as is-part-of, not is-a.

9.9 Database Management Systems

 Allows data to be viewed at different granularities by different users.

Fig. 9.3 Containment hierarchy for bicycle design database

9.3 OBJECT-ORIENTED LANGUAGES

 Object-oriented concepts can be used in different ways

 Object-orientation can be used as a design tool, and be encoded into, for

example, a relational database

 analogous to modeling data with E-R diagram and then converting

to a set of relations)

 The concepts of object orientation can be incorporated into a programming

language that is used to manipulate the database.

 Object-relational systems – add complex types and object-

orientation to relational language.

 Persistent programming languages – extend object-oriented

programming language to deal with databases by adding concepts
such as persistence and collections.

9.4 PERSISTENT PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

 Persistent Programming languages allow objects to be created and stored in a
database, and used directly from a programming language

 allow data to be manipulated directly from the programming language

 No need to go through SQL.

 No need for explicit format (type) changes

 format changes are carried out transparently by system

 Object Oriented Databases 9.10

 Without a persistent programming language, format changes

becomes a burden on the programmer

– More code to be written

– More chance of bugs

 allow objects to be manipulated in-memory

 no need to explicitly load from or store to the database

– Saved code, and saved overhead of loading/storing large

amounts of data

 Drawbacks of persistent programming languages

 Due to power of most programming languages, it is easy to make

programming errors that damage the database.

 Complexity of languages makes automatic high-level optimization more

difficult.

 Do not support declarative querying as well as relational databases

9.4.1 Persistence of Objects

 Approaches to make transient objects persistent include establishing

 Persistence by Class – declare all objects of a class to be persistent; simple

but inflexible.

 Persistence by Creation – extend the syntax for creating objects to specify

that that an object is persistent.

 Persistence by Marking – an object that is to persist beyond program

execution is marked as persistent before program termination.

 Persistence by Reachability - declare (root) persistent objects; objects are

persistent if they are referred to (directly or indirectly) from a root object.

 Easier for programmer, but more overhead for database system

 Similar to garbage collection used e.g. in Java, which

also performs reachability tests

9.4.2 Object Identity and Pointers

9.11 Database Management Systems

 A persistent object is assigned a persistent object identifier.

 Degrees of permanence of identity:

 Intraprocedure – identity persists only during the executions of a single

procedure

 Intraprogram – identity persists only during execution of a single program

or query.

 Interprogram – identity persists from one program execution to another, but

may change if the storage organization is changed

 Persistent – identity persists throughout program executions and structural

reorganizations of data; required for object-oriented systems.

 In O-O languages such as C++, an object identifier is actually an in-memory

pointer.

 Persistent pointer – persists beyond program execution

 can be thought of as a pointer into the database

n E.g. specify file identifier and offset into the file

 Problems due to database reorganization have to be dealt with by keeping

forwarding pointers

9.4.3 Storage and Access of Persistent Objects

 Name objects (as you would name files)

 Cannot scale to large number of objects.

 Typically given only to class extents and other collections of objects, but
not objects.

 Expose object identifiers or persistent pointers to the objects

 Can be stored externally.

 All objects have object identifiers.

 Store collections of objects, and allow programs to iterate over the collections to
find required objects
 Object Oriented Databases 9.12

 Model collections of objects as collection types

 Class extent - the collection of all objects belonging to the class; usually
maintained for all classes that can have persistent objects.

9.5 PERSISTENT C++ SYSTEMS

 C++ language allows support for persistence to be added without changing the
language

 Declare a class called Persistent_Object with attributes and methods to

support persistence

 Overloading – ability to redefine standard function names and operators

(i.e., +, –, the pointer deference operator –>) when applied to new types

 Template classes help to build a type-safe type system supporting

collections and persistent types.

 Providing persistence without extending the C++ language is

 relatively easy to implement

 but more difficult to use

 Persistent C++ systems that add features to the C++ language have been built, as
also systems that avoid changing the language

9.5.1 ODMG C++ Object Definition Language

 The Object Database Management Group is an industry consortium aimed at

standardizing object-oriented databases

 in particular persistent programming languages

 Includes standards for C++, Smalltalk and Java

 ODMG-93

 ODMG-2.0 and 3.0 (which is 2.0 plus extensions to Java)

 Our description based on ODMG-2.0

 ODMG C++ standard avoids changes to the C++ language

 provides functionality via template classes and class libraries

9.13 Database Management Systems

ODMG Types

 Template class d_Ref<class> used to specify references (persistent pointers)

 Template class d_Set<class> used to define sets of objects.

 Methods include insert_element(e) and delete_element(e)

 Other collection classes such as d_Bag (set with duplicates allowed), d_List and
d_Varray (variable length array) also provided.

 d_ version of many standard types provided, e.g. d_Long and d_string

 Interpretation of these types is platform independent

 Dynamically allocated data (e.g. for d_string) allocated in the database, not
in main memory

ODMG C++ ODL: Example

class Branch : public d_Object {

public:
d_String branch_name;
d_String address;
d_Long assets;
};
class Account : public d_Object {
private:
d_Long account_number;
d_set<d_Ref<Customer>>owners;
d_long find_balance( ) ;
int update_balance(d_Long delta);
};
class Person : public d_Object {
public:
d_String name;
 Object Oriented Databases 9.14

d_String address;
};
class Customer : public Person {
public:
d_Date member_from;
d_Long customer_id;
d_Ref<Branch> home_branch;
d_Set <d_Ref<Account>> accounts;
};
Fig. 9.6 Example of ODMG C++ Object definition Language

Implementing Relationships

 Relationships between classes implemented by references

 Special reference types enforces integrity by adding/removing inverse links.

 Type d_Rel_Ref<Class, InvRef> is a reference to Class, where attribute

InvRef of Class is the inverse reference.

 Similarly, d_Rel_Set<Class, InvRef> is used for a set of references

 Assignment method (=) of class d_Rel_Ref is overloaded

 Uses type definition to automatically find and update the inverse link

 Frees programmer from task of updating inverse links

 Eliminates possibility of inconsistent links

 Similarly, insert_element() and delete_element() methods of d_Rel_Set use type

definition to find and update the inverse link automatically

Implementing Relationships

extern const char _owners[ ], _accounts[ ];

class Account : public [Link] {
public:
….
d_Rel_Set <Account, _owners> accounts;
class Account : public [Link] {
public:
….
9.15 Database Management Systems

d_Rel_Set <Customer, _accounts> owners;

…..
};
const char _owners= “owners”;
const char _accounts= “accounts”;

Fig. 9.7 Referential integrity constraints in ODMG C++ ODL

9.5.2 ODMG C++ Object Manipulation Language

 Uses persistent versions of C++ operators such as new(db)

d_Ref<Account> account = new(bank_db, “Account”) Account;

 new allocates the object in the specified database, rather than in memory.

 The second argument (“Account”) gives typename used in the database.

 Dereference operator -> when applied on a d_Ref<Account> reference loads the

referenced object in memory (if not already present) before continuing with usual
C++ dereference.

 Constructor for a class – a special method to initialize objects when they are
created; called automatically on new call.

 Class extents maintained automatically on object creation and deletion

 Only for classes for which this feature has been specified

 Specification via user interface, not C++

 Automatic maintenance of class extents not supported in

earlier versions of ODMG

ODMG C++OML: Database and Object Functions

 Class d_Database provides methods to

 open a database: open(databasename)

 give names to objects: set_object_name(object, name)

 look up objects by name: lookup_object(name)

 rename objects: rename_object(oldname, newname)

 Object Oriented Databases 9.16

 close a database (close());

 Class d_Object is inherited by all persistent classes.

 provides methods to allocate and delete objects

 method mark_modified() must be called before an object is updated.

 Is automatically called when object is created

ODMG C++ OML: Example

int create_account_owner(String name, String Address){

d_Database bank_db.obj;
d_Database * bank_db= & bank_db.obj;
bank_db ->open(“Bank-DB”);
[Link] Trans;
[Link]();

d_Ref<Account> account = new(bank_db) Account;

d_Ref<Customer> cust = new(bank_db) Customer;
cust->name - name;
cust->address = address;
cust->accounts.insert_element(account);
account->owners.insert_element(cust);
... Code to initialize customer_id, account number etc.
[Link]();
bank_db->close();
}
Fig. 9.8 Example of ODMG C++ Object Manipulation Language
[Link] Class Extents
 Class extents maintained automatically in the database.

 To access a class extent: d_Extent<Customer> customerExtent(bank_db);

 Class d_Extent provides method d_Iterator<T> create_iterator() to create an

iterator on the class extent
9.17 Database Management Systems

 Also provides select(pred) method to return iterator on objects that satisfy selection
predicate pred.

 Iterators help step through objects in a collection or class extent.

 Collections (sets, lists etc.) also provide create_iterator() method.

ODMG C++ OML: Example of Iterators

int print_customers() {
d_Database bank_db_obj;
d_Database * bank_db = &bank_db_obj;
d_bank_db->open (“Bank-DB”);
d_Transaction Trans;
[Link] ();
d_Extent<Customer> all_customers(bank_db);
d_Iterator<d_Ref<Customer>> iter = all_customer.create_iterator();
d_Ref <Customer> p;
while{[Link] (p)) {
print_cust (p);
}
[Link]();
}

Fig. 9.9 Example of use of ODMG C++ iterators

[Link] ODMG C++ Binding: Other Features

 Declarative query language OQL, looks like SQL

 Form query as a string, and execute it to get a set of results (actually a bag,
since duplicates may be present)

d_Set<d_Ref<Account>> result;
d_OQL_Query q1("select a
from Customer c, [Link] a
where [Link]=‘Jones’
and a.find_balance() > 100");
 Object Oriented Databases 9.18

d_oql_execute(q1, result);

 Provides error handling mechanism based on C++ exceptions, through class

d_Error

 Provides API for accessing the schema of a database.

[Link] Making Pointer Persistence Transparent

 Drawback of the ODMG C++ approach:

 Two types of pointers

 Programmer has to ensure mark_modified() is called, else database can

become corrupted

 ObjectStore approach

 Uses exactly the same pointer type for in-memory and database objects

 Persistence is transparent applications

 Except when creating objects

 Same functions can be used on in-memory and persistent objects since

pointer types are the same

 Implemented by a technique called pointer-swizzling which is described in

Chapter 11.

 No need to call mark_modified(), modification detected automatically.

[Link] Persistent Java Systems

 ODMG-3.0 defines extensions to Java for persistence

 Java does not support templates, so language extensions are required

 Model for persistence: persistence by reachability

 Matches Java’s garbage collection model

 Garbage collection needed on the database also

 Only one pointer type for transient and persistent pointers

9.19 Database Management Systems

 Class is made persistence capable by running a post-processor on object code

generated by the Java compiler

 Contrast with pre-processor used in C++

 Post-processor adds mark_modified() automatically

 Defines collection types DSet, DBag, DList, etc.

 Uses Java iterators, no need for new iterator class

ODMG Java

 Transaction must start accessing database from one of the root object (looked up
by name)

 finds other objects by following pointers from the root objects

 Objects referred to from a fetched object are allocated space in memory, but not
necessarily fetched

 Fetching can be done lazily

 An object with space allocated but not yet fetched is called a hollow object

 When a hollow object is accessed, its data is fetched from disk.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Part – A
1. What is Object Oriented Database?
An object-oriented database is a database that subscribes to a model with information
represented by objects. Object-oriented databases are a niche offering in the
relational database management system (RDBMS) field and are not as successful or well-
known as mainstream database engines.
2. Diagrammatic representation Object Oriented Database
 Object Oriented Databases 9.20

3. List out the features of OODB.

 Complexity
 Inheritance
 Encapsulation
 Persistency

4. What is Object?
Object consists of entity and attributes which can describe the state of real world object
and action associated with that object.
5. List out the Characteristics of Object
Some important characteristics of an object are:

 Object name.
 Object identifier
 Structure of object
 Transient object
 Persistent objects
6. What is Persistent Object?
An object which exists even after the program is completely executed (or terminated), is
called as persistent objects. Object-oriented databases can store objects in secondary
memory.
7. What are the three types of attributes in OODB?
 Simple Attributes
 Complex Attributes
 Reference Attribute

8. Define Simple attributes

Attributes can be of primitive data type such as, integer, string, real etc. which can take
literal value.
9.21 Database Management Systems

Example: 'ID' is simple attribute and value is 07.

9. Define Complex attributes
Attributes which consist of collections or reference of other multiple objects are called
as complex attributes.
Example: Collection of Employees consists of many employee names.
10. Define Reference attributes
Attributes that represent a relationship between objects and consist of value or
collection of values are called as reference attributes.
Example: Manager is reference of staff object
11. What is ODMG?
The Object Database Management Group (ODMG) is made up of the leading Object
Database vendors plus a large number of companies that are interested in an ODBMS
standard. The ODMG has produced a standard for object databases. The ODMG
Standard is an interoperability standard which allows applications written to the
standard to run on any com pliant system .
12. List out the standard in ODMG
 Object Model
 Object Definition Language (ODL)
 Object Query Language (OQL)
 C++ Language Binding
 Java Language Binding

PART-B
1. With suitable illustration explain about Object Oriented Databases.
2. Describe brief notes on ODMG.
3. Discuss in detail about the OODB with relevant examples.
4. Explain the importance of complex datatype with real-time example.