CACTIS: A Database System for Specifying Functinonally-Defined Data

Cactis is an object-oriented database management system being developed at the University of Colorado. The data model underlying Cactis is based on a principle we call active semantics, and is designed to support complex functionally-defined data. In an active semantics database, each entity is assigned a behavioral specification which allows it to respond to changes elsewhere in the database. Each entity may be a piece of non-derived or (possibly complex) derived data, and may have constraints associated with it. Derived data and constraint specifications are maintained automatically and efficiently by the system. Furthermore, the active semantics data model supports an efficient rollback and recovery mechanism, which enables the user to freely explore the database. An in-memory version of Cactis exists and a full DBMS is near completion.

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