Relations as semantic constructs in an object-oriented language

Abstract

The relation as a semantic construct in an object-oriented language clearly expresses associations and constraints among objects which would otherwise be buried in implementation code. The externalization of references between objects permits a symmetric, nonredundant conceptual model which merits its own special notation and predefined operations. The objectrelation model, which combines the object-oriented model with the entity-relationship model from data base theory, is particularly useful for designing and partitioning systems of interrelated objects. Relations can be implemented efficiently using hash tables. The model proposed here has been fully implemented in an object-oriented language written by the author which has been used to implement several production applications.