Supporting display generation for complex database objects

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Abstract
Many database user interfaces are favoring a style in which the main mode of interaction is editing and browsing data objects-the interface produces the effect of directly affecting the data as if they were concrete objects. Several visual database interfaces have adopted this style to enable users to access databases more effectively without extensive training or knowledge of the database schema. Domain-specific database applications most likely would receive similar benefits by having such interfaces. The overall objective of this research is to develop support for creating such interfaces in applications that deal with complex database objects. Presently, database applications that support visual interfaces on complex objects do so without much help from the DBMS. With record-oriented data models, the responsibility for displaying structured objects is typically associated with the application because the data is modeled using a "flat" generalized structure (e.g., a relation). Thus, the application must impose the connectivity or "object structure" on the data. Since the application realizes structured objects from data records, it is best suited to create and manage the object displays for the user interface. The application therefore performs two transformations: 1) between records and structured objects, and 2) between data objects and their external representation, i.e., the displays. In addition, the application most likely will be responsible for maintaining integrity constraints concerning object structure. Object-oriented databases (OODBs) can directly model data as structured objects so that object construction need not be managed in applications and constraints on object structure can be associated with object classes. Since object structure is imposed by the database rather than the application, complex objects can be displayed directly, without any intervention by the application. Object displays may then have direct access to the database objects, and the application program only needs to specify how and when displays are created, not how displays operate. Thus, our approach is to move display management from the application to a display system that generates and

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