Representation of the Historical Information Necessary for Temporal Integrity Monitoring

Temporal integrity constraints describe long-term data dependencies to be respected by correct database evolutions. Such temporal constraints can be monitored by a runtime evaluation of corresponding transitions of an equivalent finite automaton for each substitution of the free constraint variables with database objects. The current states of the automaton are the historical information necessary for temporal integrity monitoring. This paper presents techniques for decreasing the amount of historical information by monitoring automata for whole sets of substitutions instead of single substitutions thus enabling a monitoring even for large sets of monitored substitutions.