Dynamic Relational

"We should not impose regularity where it does not exist." --Ted Nelson

Giving relational dynamic character that is roughly analogous to dynamically-typed or type-free programming languages. (The "Oracle model" is more analogous to static or strong-typed languages.) Column existence, and perhaps table existence can also optionally be dynamic. Thus, a DBA is optional. Such a tool could be useful for Rapid Application Development, and experimental or demo applications.

(Topic title not to be confused with Dynamic Sql.)

Multi Paradigm Database describes the basic ideas behind Dynamic Relational, but adds (or subtracts) features to accommodate OOP. Since the mixture of dynamism and OO features tended to confuse people, I felt a dedicated topic was in order. (Dynamism seemed necessary there to allow such a database to accommodate more paradigms.) Thus, for a working definition of dynamic relational, lets exclude these features from Multi Paradigm Database:

Optional table designation (entity attribute). Tables are assumed mandatory here.

Schema-Inheritance

But these features are kept:

Values are essentially stored as strings, with an almost Perl Language-like typing system. There is no "side flag" or required formal schema to indicate "type" of a column. Explicit types via schema's can be optionally added as needed, as described later. (As in Perl, this may require more explicit operators, such as not overloading "+" to mean both addition and concatenation. See Comparing Dynamic Variables.)

There are no explicit nulls. If an application wants to treat zero-length strings as null, or some other symbol/keyword, it can. (The string "[nul]" is a suggested convention if needed for compatibility with null-using applications.)

There is no way to distinguish between a "missing" column and an empty, zero-length column. (This is perhaps a debatable feature, but I personally like it for reasons I'm still trying to articulate.)

Dynamic schema via "Create-on-Write" - Columns and tables can be created just by putting or updating data in them. No explicit schema alteration is required. These "non-limits" can be incrementally revoked, per below. (The "non-missing-distinguish" rule above is what gives this behavior to columns.) An insert or update is sufficient to "create" a column and/or table. There would never be a "no such column" error (and perhaps tables). Creating indexes would perhaps be the only explicit "Create" command in a dynamic environment (if not automatic). The need for DDL commands would thus be greatly reduced.

An operation to find all columns in a given schema has to do an entire table scan to find those columns with values. (However, such an action is generally against the philosophy of Dynamic Relational.) One can view each row as an independent map (dictionary array). The schema for the table is simply the unique union of all map keys of the table rows.

There may be ways to automatically track the existence status of columns, but this probably creates overhead and thus should be optional.

Every row automatically get's a read-only auto-number "rowID" field.

Optional features include:

Optional schemas or "rigidity flags" on tables which require some columns to be statically defined, required, and/or possibly column types defined also. A trigger-like mechanism would be used similar to "On row change, if field foo less than 2 characters in length, then abandon change with the message 'foo is bad...'". This will allow a gradual transition to the static model if needed. Thus, one could make a given database instance "static" just like current RDBMS by supplying sufficient restrictions/validation. For example rapid prototyping may favor the dynamic approach, but later we may want to put some rules (such as types, validation, "required") in place when the model solidifies and matures. Maybe some columns will be "static" and others left dynamic. See below for a list of possible incremental constraints. The approach is generally analogous to Dual Typing Languages.

Uniqueness guarantees - The option of having key- or record-based unique record verification. (Without such, the DB may not qualify as "relational" in a pure sense, but rather Bag Atational. However, every row automatically gets an "auto-number" key.)

Tuple Definition Discussion argues that dynamic records don't really violate the "tuple" requirement of relational because one can conceptually view such as an ever-changing traditional "rigid" rectangular view. It may hurt your brain a little to think of it that way, or burn CPU to get a full rectangle, but it still manages to keep it technically honest to relational rules. Relational does not dictate that schemas never change.

Tips for adapting ODBC drivers and/or SQL for dynamism are given in links near the bottom of Multi Paradigm Database.

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Sq Lite seems the closest existing product to this idea, although only the cell "types" are dynamic, not the schema. Schemas must be declared and updated explicitly.

Dynamic schema is a key feature. If Sq Lite lacks that, it doesn't qualify in my book.

A database does not contain "cells" and "tables of cells" as you speak. It contains relvars according to dbdebunk, Date, et al.

But then most readers wouldn't know what the heck we were talking about.

Then make a Rel Var page and beat it into them because the current industry is in a sad state and most people on here are smart enough to grasp the idea of a relvar after reading about it anyway

[We can always point them at the page that already exists: Rdb Rel Var]

I didn't feel such was necessary. The "street" terms are good enough for topic at hand because this topic is not about formal definitions. (Do I smell a documentation-style Holy War brewing?)

Some also suggest that Pro Log creates or infers ad-hoc relational or relational-like structures.

Yeah dbdebunk.com really thinks highly of SQLite... www.dbdebunk.com

Comparison operator discussion and examples moved to Comparing Dynamic Variables.

This article describes Dynamic Relational-like techniques that are becoming popular:

www.readwriteweb.com

More at Record Based Database

But, it does not call the alleged alternatives "relational". One possible reason can be seen in one of the examples that violated uniqueness in column name per record, such as having two colors for a car. If they instead supplied "color_1" and "color_2", then the unique column name requirement would not be violated, keeping it true relational (or at least closer to it). I wonder if they have a good reason to abandon unique attribute names per row. And some of them look more like an Ess Expression Database (rows of nested lists), which is a curious idea, but not "relational". --top

Examples of optional/incremental "lock-down" constraints:

Require that a given column is required to have data for a given table.

Require that a given column is of a certain type (or passes a "parse test" against typical "type" templates or reg-ex's).

Disallow "instant" new columns (for non-DBA)

Disallow "instant" new tables (for non-DBA)

Possible uses:

Table-oriented GUI system

INI file replacement

RAD for experimental applications or prototyping

In-house short-term projects

User/customer insists on more self-service flexibility

Page Anchor Comparison-Symbols

To use SQL with Dynamic Relational, explicitness in types for comparing etc. is strongly recommended. There are different ways to go about this, as described in Comparing Dynamic Variables. As a draft suggestion, I'll propose "type symbols" borrowed somewhat from old-style BASIC.

I propose these symbols be required for all comparisons with dynamic columns to prevent static-database SQL habits from leaking into the dynamic version. If the type of column(s) participating in an expression is known, (explicit types via DDL are optional, but possible) then the symbols would not be required. Thus, if one imports data and schema from a traditional RDBMS, which would give each column an explicit type, then the SQL originally used in that traditional RDBMS would work as-is (barring dialect differences) and not need type symbols. If symbols are given that conflict with explicitly-defined column type(s), then a coercion of types to that of the operator (symbol) is attempted; and error-out if not convertible. Thus, "numberColumnA $> numberColumnB" would compare with string versions of the numbers, equivalent to "toString(numberColumnA) > toString(numberColumnB)" in a traditional RDBMS.

The two system-required and system-defined columns, "entity" and "row_id", are defined as string and numeric types respectively, and are not normally changed by users nor the DBA. (I won't rule out a low-level custom tweak.) Thus, explicit type comparison indicators are not needed for comparisons such as "...WHERE row_id=7 AND entity='foo'". ("Entity" is essentially the table name and thus is not normally referenced as an explicit column, but typically comes from the FROM clause. An advantage of column-based referencing is that the table can be "computed" at query run-time, adding to dynamicness.)

If two columns are of predefined types (via DDL or system-defined), then comparisons of such columns don't need indicator symbols.

It would be simpler to just require that all comparisons have explicit indicators rather than deal with the mental juggling of considering whether an indicator is needed or not for a given query. However, this conflicts with the gradual-evolution-to-traditional-RDBMS goal (of a given shop's tables) stated above. I'm kind of torn between which direction to go in: It's simplicity versus compatibility.

Perhaps we can distinguish between these two sub-categories of Dynamic Relational:

Hybrid Dynamic Relational - Facilitates gradual morphing of a shop's data to a traditional (static) RDBMS.

Dynamic-only Dynamic Relational - Doesn't support gradual morphing to a traditional RDBMS.

The second is probably easier to implement.

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See also: Objects Are From Mars Tables Are From Venus, Does Relational Require Types, Masp Brainstorming, No Sql, Multi Paradigm Database, Multi Paradigm Database Questions (has samples)

June Zero Eight

Category Relational Database, Category Language Typing, Category Speculative, Category Information Orientation

See original on c2.com