Re: object algebra

> I don't know what you mean by normalize

In TDM/XDb1, normalize means to replace a duplicate thing with a reference to the orginal thing. For example, given "john isa person" and "john obeys army", one observes that the "john" in the second sentence is a duplicate of "john" in the first sentence. The second sentence becomes "->john obeys army". Another example, given "bob" one observes that the second "b" is a duplicate of the first "b" and therefore can be normalized as "bo->b". Note, in TDM/XDb1 all the following are different things: the person named "john", the word "john" and each symbol of the word "john" The exact method of normalization and to what extent is practical is dependent on the data model and its implementation. In RDM, keys or IDs are used to implement a reference.

One could normalize symbols in RDM as shown below, but it is not practical.
I use "->X" syntax, instead of IDs to make it easier to following the referential links:

T_Person
Name, Age
->john, ->28

T_CompositeSymbol
AtmSym1, AtmSym2, AtmSym3, ...
->j, ->o, ->h, ->n
->2, ->8

T_AtomicSymbol
1
2
a
b
c
... Received on Thu Mar 04 2004 - 23:47:21 CET