Operations on sets in an OODB

Abstract

In this article we express some ideas on how to select an arbitrary set of objects, or to combine objects and information in the objects, in an arbitrary way. In the following will an object-oriented database be thought of as a collection of sets. The sets are collections of objects which all share a common message protocol. Operations originating from relational algebra are defined on these sets. To make the retrieval of objects efficient, a storage strategy for objects is developed. Combination of objects and changes in the objects' message protocol as a result of a retrieval request, are solved by a filtering mechanism.