The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 30, 1998
Filed:
Oct. 05, 1995
Philip L Boyer, San Jose, CA (US);
Gerald G Kiernan, San Jose, CA (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
The system, method, and program of this invention provides for a new type of quantifier that is useful for object-oriented queries that reference collections and nested collections of objects. The invention is applicable to any other type of database where the data has a hierarchical relationship, also. This new type of quantifier is called an outer quantifier. The outer quantifier appears in the language of the query (in the FROM clause) and creates a new runtime semantic. The function and semantics provided by outer quantifiers is similar to that provided partly by left outer joins in relational systems. Outer quantifiers are bound to a null instance if the collection over which they are defined is empty. Outer quantifiers are a simple way of expressing queries so that objects having empty collections of nested objects are included in the result, also.