Increasingly, formal specification is being used by database researchers to describe and understand the systems they are designing and implementing. Similarly, those working on formal specification techniques have recognised that the database field provides a rich context for developing their ideas. However, as experts in one field often have a relatively limited knowledge of the other, there is a growing need for discussion about the relationship between these two fields and how they can be usefully combined. This volume contains the 16 papers which were presented at the International Workshop on Specification on Database Systems, held in Glasgow, 3-5 July 1991. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together these fields and to examine, through a series of invited talks, presentations and working groups, the role that formal specification can play in developing database systems. The papers describe current research into topics such as the formal specification of data models, query languages and transaction handling and the use of formal specification techniques to understand problems which arise in database systems. The working groups, which are summarised at the end of the volume, covered a variety of issues including the role of graphical notations in database specification, the use of specification techniques in enabling "open" or extensible database systems and the education of the database community in specification techniques. This volume will be invaluable to the increasing number of researchers who are using both database systems and formal specification techniques in their work, and who wish to gain a more detailed knowledge of these two fields and the issues which affect them.

Inhalt

Transforming Functional Database Schemes to Relational Representations.- Formal Development of Relational Database Applications.- Formal Definition of Nested Relations by Syntactical Mappings.- Specifying Deductive Databases and Integrity Constraints in Meta-logic.- A Denotational Approach to Object-Oriented Query Language Definition.- Reasoning about a Modular Model-Oriented Formal Specification.- Object Models and Methodology for Object-Oriented Database Design.- A Formal Model for Databases with Applications to Schema Merging.- Specifying a Database System to Itself.- VVSL Specification of a Transaction-oriented Access Handler.- A Specification of an Object-Oriented Data Model with Relations.- Specification of Database Applications in the TROLL Language.- Algebraic Specification of Databases - A Survey from a Database Perspective.- Towards a Structured Specification Language for Database Applications.- The Reification Dimension in Object-oriented Data Base Design.- Database Specification using Transaction Sets.- Working Group Sessions.- Author Index.