Extensions to Starburst: objects, types, functions and rules

Starburst is a research prototype of an extensible relational database management system that is under development at the IBM Almaden Research Center. Through extensions to Starburst, we are incorporating the advanced structuring and data behavior features offered by object-oriented database management systems, while retaining the significant gains in data independence and data integrity of the relational model and upward compatibility with its standard access language, SQL. Some of the advanced features supported by Starburst extensions, described in this paper, include hierarchies of user-defined types and functions, large unstructured and structured complex objects, and user-defined rules to respond to changes in the database.