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Event Specification

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Database Systems

Synonyms

Event declaration; Event definition; Composite event query

Definition

Event specifications define event types in terms of patterns of other event types by using event operators (either expressed as operators in an operator grammar or as functions in a functional grammar) and event contexts. Event types are categorized as atomic (or primitive) or composite. An atomic event type is either a system primitive (for example, begin transaction) or it can be any defined atomic change in an activity such as a method, procedure, task etc. (e.g., method has been called). Event types defined in terms of other event types are named composite event types.

Historical Background

Essentially, whenever something has to be defined, it is necessary to have a specification. This can be found in several disciplines of computer science, for example, programming languages, compiler technology etc.

Event specifications became significant with the advent of the HiPAC project [10], in which seminal...

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Mellin, J., Berndtsson, M. (2009). Event Specification. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_505

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