A Relaxed Approach to Integrity and Inconsistency in Databases

Abstract-All methods for efficient integrity checking require all integrity constraints to be totally satisfied, before any update is executed. However, a certain amount of inconsistency is the rule, rather than the exception in databases. In this paper, we close the gap between theory and practice of integrity checking, i.e., between the unrealistic theoretical requirement of total integrity and the practical need for inconsistency tolerance, which we define for integrity checking methods. We show that most of them can still be used to check whether updates preserve integrity, even if the current state is inconsistent. Inconsistency-tolerant integrity checking proves beneficial both for integrity preservation and query answering. Also, we show that it is useful for view updating, repairs, schema evolution and other applications.

show abstract

“…This paper improves and extends [28] in several ways. New are the properties and conditions for completeness and weak completeness wrt.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 60%

Inconsistency-Tolerant Integrity Checking

Decker

Martinenghi

2011

IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In [8], it is shown that, contrary to common belief, it is possible to waive the total integrity premise for most simplification-based approaches to integrity checking without any tradeoff. Methods which continue to function well when this premise is waived are called inconsistencytolerant.…”

Section: Waiving the Total Integrity Premisementioning

confidence: 72%

“…The concept of inconsistency-tolerant integrity checking [8] is formalized as follows. It is easy to see that the above definition generalizes the traditional definition of sound and complete integrity checking.…”

Section: Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Business Rules for Concurrent E-commerce Transactions

Decker

2009

2009 IEEE Conference on Commerce and Enterprise Computing

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Business rules are a cornerstone of the consistency management of e-commerce data. The concurrency of transactions by multiple customers of e-commerce services (e.g., seat reservation systems) is indispensable for most of such services. However, the enforcement of business rules may falter due to extant inconsistencies of legacy data and integrity violations caused by the concurrency of transactions. To avoid this, we propose an inconsistency-tolerant approach to business rules enforcement for e-business applications in which business rules are expressed by database integrity constraints. The extension overcomes problems related to persistent integrity violations of stored data in ecommerce systems with concurrent transactions.

show abstract

“…If we eliminate the constant by rephrasing the rule to 'the president of a nation must be a citizen of that nation', then the empty database no longer violates it. In general, an empty database never violates a rule if no constants are involved in the rule (Decker, Martinenghi 2006). …”

Section: Special Relations and Constantsmentioning

confidence: 99%