The Starburst Rule System: Language Design, Implementation, and Applications

Abstract

This short paper provides an overview of the Starburst Rule System, a production rules facility integrated into the Starburst extensible database system. The rule language is based on arbitrary database state transitions rather than tupleor statement-level changes, yielding a clear and flexible execution semantics. The rule system was implemented rapidly using the extensibility features of Starburst; it is integrated into all aspects of query and transaction processing, including concurrency control, authorization, recovery, etc. Using the Starburst Rule System, we have developed a number of methods for automatically generating database rule applications, including integrity constraints, materialized views, deductive rules, and semantic heterogeneity.