Database Integrity

Abstract

One of the factors that stimulated the development of database technology was the need to guarantee the consistency of the stored data. On the other hand, the demand to process more complex data with more semantic content have also lead to a better understanding of the properties of the data and motivated the evolution of the Data Base Management Systems (DBMS) toward the inclusion of facilities to handle such properties. The handling of data properties within the context of a database engine faces two main difficulties: 1) Properties are hard to identify, especially those obvious in the actual world; 2) Data property presentation varies during the process of design of the software.