Re: Temporal Data (long)

dwyche_at_giant.intranet.com (A little left of plumb) writes:

> Temporal Data
>...
>Am I missing something obvious? Is there a better way to write the
>function, or either flavor of view? Is there a better way to approach the
>whole problem?
 

>Any ideas, thoughts, pointers, etc would be greatly appreciated.

A wise procedure when choosing software is to place the greatest weight on business requirements so that you don't choose an unsuitable system. What you need is DB software that understands temporal data, either an extended relational database like Informix/Illustra or an OLAP database or, if you really have to use Oracle, relational OLAP software that will provide what you need without your having to write it yourself. Personally, I think Illustra would be the best choice. It has a "time travel" feature where deleted/updated information isn't purged until you say it should be so that you can say "give me the data at X time in the past," and it also has time-series management capabilities via its time-series data blade.

Anyway, you might check out comp.databases.olap for guidance from others.

                                        Seth

-- 

Seth Grimes -- grimes_at_access.digex.net -- http://www.access.digex.net/~grimes
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