Abstract
The theory of integrity constraints has led to a large body of knowledge and to many applications such as optimisation of schema behaviour through normalisation to schemata which are easier to maintain, as automatic enforcement of database integrity by triggering or other procedural techniques, as quality improvement of data in databases, and as query recompilations due to the knowledge of validity of constraints in a database. Integrity constraints are often misunderstood, are given in the wrong database context or within the wrong database models, often combine a number of very different facets of semantics in databases and are difficult to specify. At the same time, pearls and hidden treasure of the theory of integrity constraints have been already forgotten.
We develop a unifying approach to specification and treatment of integrity constraints. We survey some pearls, nuggets and lessons learned with semantic models.
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Thalheim, B. (2011). Integrity Constraints in (Conceptual) Database Models. In: Kaschek, R., Delcambre, L. (eds) The Evolution of Conceptual Modeling. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6520. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17505-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17505-3_3
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