Oracle International Corporation

Rajagopalan Govindarajan

Anil Nori

Viswanathan Krishnamurthy

Susan M Kotsovolos

Ravi Murthy

Kumar Rajamani

Jaebock Lee

Joyo Wijaya

Ravikanth Kasamsetty

Jacco Draaijer

Russell John Green

Ramkumar Krishnan

Ho Chak Hung

Guhan Viswanathan

A method and apparatus for updating databases are disclosed. An update vector for an object is created for identifying updated attributes. A dependent object is identified and a dependency vector of the dependent object is compared with update vector to determine whether the dependent object depends on the updated attributes.

Finer grain dependency tracking for database objects

A method and apparatus are provided for handling within a database system data items that are associated with data types whose native structure is not known to the database system. The data items are stored within the database system in their native structure, even though it is not understood by the database system. To store the data items, the database system calls a pickling routine that is provided by the user, or by the runtime subsystem of the programming environment that is native to the data item. To retrieve the routine from storage, the database system calls an unpickling routine, also provided by the user or the appropriate runtime subsystem. Because the database maintains the data items in their native format, no conversions are required as the data items are passed between the database system and external routines that manipulate the data items.

Opaque types

The present invention provides a method and mechanism to store and manage self-descriptive heterogeneous data in a database system. In one embodiment, a generic datatype is defined which encapsulate type descriptions along with the actual data itself. Another generic datatype is defined to encapsulate structural information for new datatypes. By using these generic datatypes to encapsulate heterogeneous data, the database system can be made aware of the exact structure and format of the heterogeneous data. This permits users and the database system to store, manage, and access the heterogeneous data like known datatypes in the system. Other objects, advantages, and features of the invention are described in the Drawings, Claims, and Detailed Description.

Method and mechanism for storing and managing self-descriptive heterogeneous data

A method and apparatus are provided for handling within a database system data items that are associated with data types whose native structure is not known to the database system. The data items are stored within the database system in their native structure, even though it is not understood by the database system. To store the data items, the database system calls a pickling routine that is provided by the user, or by the runtime subsystem of the programming environment that is native to the data item. To retrieve the routine from storage, the database system calls an unpickling routine, also provided by the user or the appropriate runtime subsystem. Because the database maintains the data items in their native format, no conversions are required as the data items are passed between the database system and external routines that manipulate the data items. Techniques are also provided for declaring attributes of the data item that can be accessed within the database system. The user provides routines for the database system to call in order to access the declared attributes, which may be different than the actual attributes that the data item has in its native environment.

A database server is configured to process original requests received from a client and callback requests received from an external routine. The database server saves global information before calling the external routine to distinguish whether a received request is an original or a callback request. Furthermore, both types of requests can be submitted via the same application programming interface and preferably with the same interprocess communication protocol.

Mechanism and method for performing callbacks

A method, system and computer-readable medium is provided for grouping database objects into logical groupings in order to simplify administrative and other operations that need to be performed by the database server. Such operations can be performed once at the logical group level for a group of related objects, as opposed to at the individual database object level. For increased flexibility, the logical groupings need not dictate the format, schema or location of their members. A hierarchy may be established between the logical groupings, where child groupings inherit some or all of the properties of the parent groupings. A correspondence may be established between some groupings and operating system directories, allowing identifiers associated with the groupings to be used as aliases for the full operating system paths to the corresponding directories.

Growing community of inventors

Fremont, CA, United States of America

Rajagopalan Govindarajan