Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Toward Automated Support for Transparent Interoperable Queries

  • Published:
Information Technology and Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Many Object-Oriented Databases (OODBs) use programming languages that predate Java, such as C++, CLOS and Smalltalk. Thus, there is a growing need for interoperating these OODBs with new applications that require Java. Unfortunately, there are few mechanisms that allow software developers to easily integrate Java applications with non-Java OODBs. Although various interoperability mechanisms have been developed over the years, these approaches have some significant drawbacks in practice. They are often difficult to use, provide little, if any, automated support, and produce software that is difficult to engineer and maintain. In this paper, we describe an interoperability approach that allows application developers to seamlessly and transparently access non-Java OODBs from Java applications. We first present JOQL, a Java-based object query language that we are developing. JOQL queries are embedded in Java applications and are used to perform queries over C++-based OODBs. We also describe an accompanying toolset that processes Java programs containing JOQL queries. The toolset produces all the necessary code allowing Java applications to access and manipulate a C++-based OODB. As a result, application developers are free to work in Java without having to concern themselves with the details of interoperating with C++. Finally, we provide some preliminary experimental data that demonstrates our approach incurs a reasonable performance overhead.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. S. Alagic, The ODMG object model: Does it make sense? in: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA-97), ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 32(10), New York, October 1997 (ACM Press, 1997) pp. 253-270.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ardent java O2 binding, World Wide Web URL (1998). http://www.ardentsoftware.com/object/ papers/JavaBinding.html.

  3. D.J. Barrett, A. Kaplan and J.C. Wileden, Automated support for seamless interoperability in polylingual software systems, in: The 4th Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering, San Francisco, CA, October 1996.

  4. P. Butterworth, A. Otis and J. Stein, The GemStone object database management system, Communications of the ACM 34(10) (1991) 64-77.

    Google Scholar 

  5. M. Carey, D. Dewitt and J. Naughton, The OO7 benchmark, in: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM SIGMOD Conference, Washington, DC, May 1993.

  6. R. Cattell, D.K. Barry, M. Berler, J. Eastman, D. Jordan, C. Russell, O. Schadow, T. Stanienda and F. Velez, eds., The Object Database Standard: ODMG 3.0, Series in Data Management Systems (Morgan Kaufmann, 2000).

  7. A.B. Chaudhri and M. Loomis, Object Databases in Practice (Prentice-Hall, 1998).

  8. Georgia Institute of Technolog, Altanta, GA, CUP User’s Manual, 0.10g edition, March 1998.

  9. R. Grehan, Poet goes Java, Byte 22(12) (1997).

  10. G. Hamilton, R. Cattell and M. Fisher, JDBC Database Access with Java, The Java Series (Addison-Wesley, 1997).

  11. T. Instruments, Open OODB 1.0 Query Language User Manual (Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, TX, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  12. B. Janssen and M. Spreitzer, ILU: Inter-language unification via object modules, in: Workshop on Multi-Language Object Models, Portland, OR, August 1994 (in conjunction with OOPSLA’94).

  13. A. Kaplan, J.V. Ridgway, B.R. Schmerl, K. Sridhar and J.C. Wileden, Toward pure polylingual persistence, in: 9th International Workshop on Persistent Object Systems, Lillehammer, Norway, 2000.

  14. A. Kaplan, J.V. Ridgway and J. Wileden, Why IDLs are not ideal, in: Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Workshop on Software Specification and Design, Ise-Shima, Japan, April 1998.

  15. A. Kaplan and J.C. Wileden, Toward painless polylingual persistence, in: 7th International Workshop on Persistence Object Systems, Cape May, NJ, May 1996.

  16. C. Lamb, G. Landis, J. Orenstein and D. Weinreb, The ObjectStore database system, Communications of the ACM 34(10) (1991) 50-63.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Microsoft ODBC 3.0 Programmer’s Reference and SDK Guide (1997).

  18. Object Management Group, The Common Object Request Broker: Architecture and Specification, August 1997, Revision 2.1.

  19. R. Sessions, COM and DCOM: Microsoft’s Vision for Distributed Object (Wiley Computer Publishing, 1997).

  20. [20] Sun Microsystems, Inc., Cupertino, CA, Java Native Interface Specification, May 1997. http://java. sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/docs/guide/jni/spec/jniTOC.doc.html.

  21. [21] Sun Microsystems, Inc., Cupertino, CA, JDK 1.1.x Documentation (1998). http://java.sun.com/ products/jdk/1.1/docs/index.html.

  22. D.L. Wells, J.A. Blakely and C.W. Thompson, Architecture of an open object-oriented management system, IEEE Computer 25(10) (1992) 74-82.

    Google Scholar 

  23. S.B. Zdonik and D. Maier, Fundamentals of object-oriented databases, in: Readings in Object-Oriented Database Systems, eds. S.B. Zdonik and D. Maier (Morgan Kaufmann, 1990) pp. 1-32.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, 29634, USA

    Alan Kaplan, Bradley Schmerl & Rajesh Veeraraghavan

Authors
  1. Alan Kaplan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Bradley Schmerl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rajesh Veeraraghavan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alan Kaplan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kaplan, A., Schmerl, B. & Veeraraghavan, R. Toward Automated Support for Transparent Interoperable Queries. Information Technology and Management 3, 387–406 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019724924697

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019724924697

Search

Navigation