Monitoring Object-Centered Constraints on Views Through Evaluating Queries as Search

Abstract

Object-centered constraints are a computationally practical type of constraint that can be defined on any network of data. These constraints can be incrementally maintained by searching for constraint violations about points of change within a database. It may be infeasible to define a constraint on the base data or base relationships of a database, but preferable to define it on a view. When attempting to detect constraint violations, some part of the view will need to be instantiated. This partial view instantiation can be performed by evaluating the query that defines that view as a search about the point of change in the network. This can significantly reduce the number of pages accesses needed to determine if the constraint is violated.