A Development Environment for Active Database Systems: Testing and Analysis of Active Database Rules

主动数据库系统通过使用规则作为警报器和触发器，将被动数据库处理转换为主动环境。本研究探讨了主动数据库开发环境的两个互补性方面：终止和汇流属性的规则分析和主动规则的运行时测试和调试。这项研究是在一个主动的、演绎的和面向对象的数据库的背景下进行的。规则分析过程是一种静态方法，在执行之前应用来自条件项重写的终止/汇流分析技术来识别规则问题。运行时环境是一种动态方法，允许用户逐步执行规则触发过程，观察规则行为并测试不同的规则触发序列。执行模型包括用于监视对派生数据的改变的传播算法。还在研究将规则分析与规则生成和交易开发相结合，以支持在规则执行之前对规则进行说明和分析。这项工作的意义在于集成了主动、演绎和面向对象的概念，以及提供了支持环境，以解决复杂数据库应用程序开发中主动规则的正确性和可预测性。

Active database systems transform passive database processing into active environments by using rules as alerters and triggers. This research is investigating two complementary aspects of active database development environments: the analysis of rules for termination and confluence properties and the run-time testing and debugging of active rules. The research is addressed in the context of an active, deductive, and object-oriented database. The rule analysis process is a static approach, applying termination/confluence analysis techniques from conditional term rewriting to identify rule problems before execution. The run-time environment is a dynamic approach allowing users to step through the rule triggering process, observing rule behavior and testing different rule triggering sequences. The execution model includes a propagation algorithm for monitoring changes to derived data. The integration of rule analysis with rule generation and transaction development to support specification and analysis of rules prior to rule execution is also being investigated. The significance of this work is found i n the integration of active, deductive, and object-oriented concepts as well as the supportive environment provided to address the correctness and predictability of active rules in the development of complex database applications.