Abstract
The Aldat project advocates the algebraic approach to data. This paper reviews this approach in the context of the persistent data type, relation, and the algebraic operators needed when including relations in a programming language. The relations discussed are the classical ones of Codd. The relational algebra consists of two families of binary operators and one of unary operators, and includes Codd’s as a special case. We also review a domain algebra of two categories of operator. To illustrate the effectiveness of this extended relational algebra for programming, we show applications to text processing (concordance, document similarity coefficients), and geometry (point-in-polygon, intersection of lines). We introduce recursion into the extended relational algebra and discuss applications to logical deduction in Horn clauses and syllogisms and to the computation of property inheritance, such as arises in semantic typing in programming languages.
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Merrett, T.H. (1988). Persistence and Aldat. In: Atkinson, M.P., Buneman, P., Morrison, R. (eds) Data Types and Persistence. Topics in Information Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61556-6_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61556-6_12
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