Object Identity and

Reference Types in SQL

Presenters:
Abenezer Ayalneh
Beniam Tibebu
Doni Tamrat
Hermon Shimelis
Introduction
• What this presentation is all about:
 Object identity in an Object Oriented Database System
 Object Identifier (OID)
 Properties of OID
 Some problems in earlier OODSs
 Solutions For the earlier OODSs in the latest OODSs
 Object Identifiers Using Reference Types in SQL
 Syntax for Object Identifiers Using Reference Types in SQL

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Object Identity
• One goal of an Object Data Management System
(ODMS) is to maintain direct correspondence
between real-world and database objects without
losing the object’s Integrity and identity.
• TheODMS gives a unique, system generated
identifier called Object Identifier (OID) to each
independent object stored in the database.

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Object Identity cont.…
• Properties of OID:
 Its is not visible to the external user.
 It is Immutable
 I.e. the OID value of a particular object should not
change.
 And even if an object is removed from the database
the OID should be preserved.
 The OID should not be dependent on any attribute
of the object.

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A little back in history
• Some early ODMSs have used the physical
address as the OID to increase the efficiency of
object retrieval.
 If the physical address of the object changes, an indirect pointer
can be placed at the former address, which gives the new
physical location of the object.
• Some other early OO data models require that
everything (basic values, such as an integer, string,
or Boolean) to be represented as an object.

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A little back in history cont….
• This
is not very practical, since it leads to the
generation of too many OIDs.
• As a solution for this problem, latest OODSs
represent objects with an immutable OID,
whereas a literal value has no OID and its value
just stands for itself.

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Object Identifiers Using Reference Types
in SQL
• Unique system-generated object identifiers can be
created via the reference type in the latest version of SQL.
 For example:
CREATE TYPE PERSON_TYPE AS (
NAME VARCHAR (35),
SEX CHAR,
BIRTH_DATE DATE,
ADDR USA_ADDR_TYPE

REF IS SYSTEM GENERATED

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Object Identifiers Using Reference Types
in SQL cont….
• The “REF IS SYSTEM GENERATED”
statement indicates that whenever a new
PERSON_TYPE object is created, the system
will assign it a unique system-generated
identifier.
• ButIt is also possible not to have a system-
generated object identifier and use the traditional
keys of the basic relational model if desired.

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Object Identifiers Using Reference Types
in SQL cont….
• Theuser can specify that system-generated object
identifiers for the individual rows by using the
syntax:
REF IS <OID_ATTRIBUTE> <VALUE_GENERATION_METHOD> ;

• theuser declares that the attribute named

<OID_ATTRIBUTE> will be used to identify
individual tuples in the table.

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Object Identifiers Using Reference Types
in SQL cont….
• The options for <VALUE_GENERATION_METHOD>
are:
 SYSTEM GENERATED: in which case the system
will automatically generate a unique identifier for
each tuple.
 DERIVED: in which , the traditional method of
using the user-provided primary key value to
identify tuples is applied.

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