Constraint driven computations in evolving object databases

Abstract

PROSE, a generic package for maintaining the consistency of object databases using constraint driven computations is discussed. Two original contributions of the package which arose from the meeting of objects and constraints are described. First, due to its reflective implementation, PROSE makes it possible keep consistency not only for the database entities but also for the constraint networks it builds. Second, it provides the user with temporal constraints that help supervise the evolution of the entities between arbitrary time events. A validation of this approach is shown by describing an instantiation of PROSE for an expert system shell.<>