Treffer: Forward and Backward Analysis of Object-Oriented Database Programming Languages: An Application to Static Integrity Management

In this paper, we propose an efficient technique to statically manage integrity constraints in objectoriented database programming languages. We place ourselves in the context of a simplified database programming language, close to O 2 , in which we assume that updates are undertaken by means of methods. An important issue when dealing with constraints is that of efficiency. A nave management of such constraints can cause a severe floundering of the overall system. Our basic assumption is that the runtime checking of constraints is too costly to be undertaken systematically. Therefore, methods that are always safe with respect to integrity constraints should be proven so at compile time. The run-time checks should only concern the remaining methods. To that purpose, we propose a new approach, based on the use of predicate transformers combined with automatic theorem proving techniques, to prove the invariance of integrity constraints under complex methods. We then describe th.