Expressions as Data in Relational Data Base Management Systems

• Main Author: Saravanan, Mahesh
• Format: Others
• Published: ScholarWorks@UNO 2006
• Online Access: http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/500; http://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1500&context=td

Numerous applications, such as publish/subscribe, website personalization, applications involving continuous queries, etc., require that user.s interest be persistently maintained and matched with the expected data. Conditional Expressions can be used to maintain user interests. This thesis focuses on the support for expression data type in relational database system, allowing storing of conditional expressions as .data. in columns of database tables and evaluating those expressions using an EVALUATE operator. With this context, expressions can be interpreted as descriptions, queries, and filters, and this significantly broadens the use of a relational database system to support new types of applications. The thesis presents an overview of the expression data type, storing the expressions, evaluating the stored expressions and shows how these applications can be easily supported with improved functionality. A sample application is also explained in order to show the importance of expressions in application context, with a comparison of the application with and without expressions.