A Closed System of Representation for Relationally-Organized Data and its Descriptors.
Abstract
Recently we have witnessed a dramatic increase in both the study and use of data bases. These activities have in turn stimulated interest in data description facilities. The work reported here was motivated by the observation that descriptors for structured data are themselves, in fact, data-like in many respects. This paper introduces a simple language for relationally-organized data and a companion descriptor language, for the purpose of demonstrating a single system of representation for both data constructs and their descriptors. It is assumed that each data construct (i.e., relation) belongs to a previously defined relation class and that a descriptor is used to define the structure of the elements of each class. The system presented here is closed in the sense that it allows each descriptor to be represented as a relation. Its adoption would permit data description facilities to be implemented in terms of data manipulation facilities. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1974
- Accession Number
- ADA034994
Entities
People
- Clifford R. Hollander
Organizations
- Stanford University