Design for an Object Database Management System Library

Object database systems are emerging as a popular and significant foundation system for applications. Therefore, the form of the interface to an object database system is critical. There appears to be two primary approaches to the design of the interface: the language approach, in which the interface is provided by and embedded within a new or modified programming language, and the library approach, in which the interface is provided through library of procedural and data abstractions. While the language approach has so far enjoyed the most attention from researchers, the library approach has a legitimate place in the application developer's tool chest. This paper presents the design of an object database system interface, called Persi, that employs the library approach. The fundamental models of typing, computation, persistence, access, transactions, and memory underlying Persi are first discussed. The library interface itself is then described, followed by discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the approach and plans for future work. A prototype of the interface has been evolving and successfully used within a variety of applicaitons for several years now.