Implementing temporal integrity constraints using an active DBMS

The system presented in this paper allows automatic and efficient translation of integrity constraints formulated in past temporal logic into rules of the Starburst DBMS. During the compilation, the set of constraints is checked for the safe evaluation property. The result of the compilation is a set of Starburst SQL statements that define all the necessary rules needed for enforcing the given constraints. There is no need for an additional run-time constraint monitor. When the rules are activated, all updates to the database that violate any of the constraints are automatically rejected (i.e. the corresponding transaction is aborted). In addition to efficient implementation, this approach offers a clean separation of application programs and the integrity checking code