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Functional Data Model

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Encyclopedia of Database Systems

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Definition

Functional Data Models are a form of Semantic Data Model which appeared early in database history. They use the mathematical formalism of function application to represent and follow associations between data items. Functions are usually applied to variables whose values may be object identifiers or record instances. Thus if P represents an entity instance of type Person, then forename(P) would return a string (e.g., “Peter”). (Note however that different systems may write this in a LISP style as (forename P) or in JAVA style as P.forename.) The function town(P) could be used to represent an association by returning the identifier for Peter’s home town. This allows function composition so that name(town(P)) = P.town.name = “Aberdeen”.

Using functions gives several obvious advantages. Firstly the syntax is universally understood, and provides a means of expressing schemas, queries and constraints independently of any supplier-dependent language. This is very handy for...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Peter M. D. Gray

Authors
  1. Peter M. D. Gray
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Gray, P.M.D. (2009). Functional Data Model. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_173

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