Oracle International Corporation

Gerald Venzl

Juan R Loaiza

Tirthankar Lahiri

Andrew Witkowski

Sabina Petride

Beda Christoph Hammerschmidt

Ajit Mylavarapu

Sankar Subramanian

Disclosed herein are techniques for storing, within a database system, metadata that indicates an intended usage (IU). Once created, an IU may be assigned to a column to (a) indicate how the column is intended to be used, and (b) affect how the database server behaves when database operations involve values from the column. The IU assigned to a column supplements, but does not replace, the datatype definition for the column. Each IU may have an IU-bundle. The IU-bundle of an IU indicates how the database server behaves with respect to any column that is assigned the IU. For example, the IU-bundle may indicate constraints that the database server must validate during operations on values from columns assigned to the IU. Techniques are also described for implementing multi-column IUs and flexible IUs.

Extending database data with intended usage information

Growing community of inventors

Redwood City, CA, United States of America

Gerald Venzl