This book presents an overview of the most fundamental aspects of the theory that underlies the Relational Database Model. As such it is self-contained though experience with formal models and abstract data manipulating on the one hand and with the practical use of a relational system on the other hand can help the reader. Such experience will offer the reader a better understanding of and a motivation for the different concepts, theories and results mentioned in the book. We have focussed on the most basic concepts and aspects of the relational model, without trying to give a complete overview of the state of the art of database theory. Recently a lot of books on databases in general and on the relational model in particular have been published. Most of them describe the use of database systems. 'Some clarify how information has to be structured and organized before it can be used to build applications. Others help the user in writing down his applications or in finding tricky ways to optimize the running time or the necessary space. Another category of books treat more fundamental and more general aspects such as the description of the relational model, independent of any implementation, the decomposition in normal forms or the global design of distributed databases. Few, however, are the books that describe in a formal way some of the subjects mentioned above.

This book is intended as a text for a course in programming languages. The pre requisites for such a course are insight in structured programming and knowledge as well as practical experience of at least one (e.g., Pascal) of the programming languages treated in the book. The emphasis is on language concepts rather than on syntactic details. The book covers a number of important language concepts that are related to data struc tures. The comparison of the programming languages Pascal, Algol 68, PL/1 and Ada consists in investigating how these concepts are supported by each of these languages. Interesting evaluation criteria are generality, simplicity, safety, readability and portability. The study of programming languages is based on a simple model called SMALL. This model serves as a didactic vehicle for describing, comparing and evaluating data structures in various programming languages. Each chapter centers around a specific language concept. It consists of a general discussion followed by a number of language sections, one for each of the languages Pascal, Algol 68, PL/1 and Ada. Each of these sections contains a number of illustrating program fragments written in the programming language concerned. For each program fragment in one language, there is an analogous fragment in the others. The book can be read "vertically" so that the programming languages Pascal, Algol 68, PL/1 and Ada are encountered in that order several times. A "horizontal" reading of the book would consist in selecting only those sections which only concern one language."

This is the first comprehensive survey of the field of constraint databases, written by leading researchers. Constraint databases are a fairly new and active area of database research. Their ability to deal with infinite sets makes them particularly promising as a technology for integrating spatial and temporal data with standard relational databases. Constraint databases bring techniques from a variety of fields, such as logic and model theory, algebraic and computational geometry, as well as symbolic computation, to the design and analysis of data models and query languages.

This book is the first comprehensive survey of the field of constraint databases, written by leading researchers. Constraint databases are a fairly new and active area of database research. The key idea is that constraints, such as linear or polynomial equations, are used to represent large, or even infinite, sets in a compact way. The ability to deal with infinite sets makes constraint databases particularly promising as a technology for integrating spatial and temporal data with standard relational databases. Constraint databases bring techniques from a variety of fields, such as logic and model theory, algebraic and computational geometry, as well as symbolic computation, to the design and analysis of data models and query languages.

This volume is the proceedings of the second International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT) held in Bruges, Belgium, August 31 - September 2, 1988. ICDT intends to provide a European forum for the international research community working on theoretical issues related to database and knowledge base systems. The proceedings of this conference contain all invited and accepted papers, which represent the latest results obtained in ongoing research in database theory worldwide. Most major themes of research in database theory are covered in ICDT '88: the relational model, logic and databases, object-oriented databases, deductive databases, conceptual models, analysis and design of data structures, query languages, concurrency control and updates and transactions.

This volume contains the 13 best of the 18 papers presented at the first MFDBS conference held in Dresden, GDR, January 19-23, 1987. A short summary of the two panel discussions is also included. The volume is intended to be a reflection of the current state of knowledge and a guide to further development in database theory. The main topics covered are: theoretical fundaments of the relational data model (dependency theory, design theory, null values, query processing, complexity theory), and of its extensions (graphical representations, NF2-models), conceptual modelling of distributed database management systems and the relationship between logic and databases.