CS 770 : Selected Topics in Object - Oriented Programming 2000 - 2001 , first term Instructor : Emil Sekerinski

data typing Inheritance Object orientation Object identity Recovery Versioning Transactions Querying Concurrency Integrity Persistence Database Security capabilities Performance Object-oriented databases Figure 1.1 Object-oriented databases. 1.1 What is an Object-oriented Database? Concept of Object Oriented Databases 4 Some of the critics of object-oriented programming have brushed it aside as a “high-flying fad” (Guthery, 1989). Object orientation allows a more direct representation and modeling of real-world problems. Database functionality is needed to ensure persistence and concurrent sharing of information in applications. Object-oriented databases combine the benefits and concepts of object orientation with database functionality. Object orientation is defined as follows: Object Orientation = Abstract data typing + Inheritance + Object identity Database capabilities are defined as follows: Database capabilities = Persistence + Concurrency + Transactions + Recovery + Querying + Versioning + Integrity + Security + Performance Object-oriented databases are thus defined as follows: Object-oriented databases = Object Orientation + Database capabilities Therefore object-oriented databases are an extension of two concepts: object orientation and databases. The potential of object-oriented databases lies in the tight integration of these two aspects. There have been many definitions of object orientation and object-oriented databases (Atkinson et al., 1992; Hughes, 1991; Kim, 1991). Object-oriented databases constitute an important step in the evolution of database, illustrated in Figure 1.2 File systems Network Hierarchical