From: wlfraed@ix.netcom.com (Dennis Lee Bieber)
Subject: Re: gadfly RDBMS ???
Organization: > Bestiaria Support Staff < > Dueling Modems Online Service <
On Wed, 21 Jul 1999 17:42:55 +0200, Darko Cvagic
<darko.cvagic@arcus.tel.hr> declaimed the following in comp.lang.python:
>
>
> Thanks, I think that I'm exchange terms like RELATION and LINK
> So, Gadfly IS RELATIONAL, but I can't make something like:
> CREATE LINK order_customer
> FOREIGN KEY order(cno)
> REFERENCES customer
> ON DELETE RESTRICT
>
> I can't do it in gadfly, am I wright?
> What is name for construction like this?
> I was thought that it is RELATIONAL , I was wrong!
That sounds like a definition of referential integrity
constraints... I've not looked at gadfly -- perhaps it doesn't actually
maintain such internally, but only via SQL select statements, which
would require one to code the integrity tests themselves...
It is confusing in a way -- based upon some readings of my old
DB textbooks, "relation" in "relational" doesn't really apply to
linkages between tables. The "relation" is that the key value /in/ the
table uniquely identifies the "related" data values, and that each
"record" (tuple in the texts) of a table is identical in format to every
other in that table.
Relational algebra and calculus are methods of selecting data
from multiple tables to produce a result -- but again, these do not
enforce referential integrity. In truth, "relational" is a view of the
data, which may be stored in any format -- even in hierarchical or
network format.
I think I begin to ramble...
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