Dynamic Integrity Constraints Definition and Enforcement in Databases: A Classification Framework

A dynamic constraint expresses conditions that involve facts of two or more states of the database. Since the database is expected to satisfy such conditions, a fundamental issue about integrity constraints is their enforcement. Many methods have been developed in this respect. The purpose of this paper is to present a brief survey of methods for dynamic constraint definition and enforcement. Also we classify and compare these methods with respect to several relevant features. Keywords Dynamic integrity constraints, integrity enforcement, survey, classification * Permanent address: Diretoria de Processamento de Dados, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Uberlândia, MG, Brazil (E-mail: [email protected]) 1 INTRODUCTION In the field of information systems and databases, the term integrity normally refers to the correctness or validity of the stored data, as defined explicitly by means of integrity rules or integrity constraints (Grefen and Apers, 1993). Integrity is a very impo..