Re: MultiValue Databases

>>> ID fields are not needed ... a single relvar is sufficient:
>>
>> Would it look like this?
>> Name Number
>> ----- ----------
>> John 111-1111
>> John 222-2222
>> Mary 222-2222
>> Bob NULL
>
> No, the Bob tuple should not be present. If you want to record the
> existence of people independently of phone numbers,
> you need a Person relvar.
>
Yes, I wanted to store a person with 0 to many phone#s. Would ID fields be needed in that case?

> ... I would not put NULLs in my relvars.
>
I agree :)

> > What if "222-2222" appears in mulitple columns of multiple tables?
> What about it? Please be more explicit.
>
What enforces the integrity between multiple 222-2222? What prevents data corruptions? What facilities management of the multiple 222-2222's?

> > What enforces the integrity of the "222-2222"s?
> What kind of integrity do you need?
>
The kind that minimizes data corruption and maximizes data management.

> What enforces it in your xrdb?
>
The xrdb-engine. Each thing is represented once which may be referred to 0 to many times. For example, the person John is represent once with multiple references to him.

> > expect the unexpected. Allow each thing to have any number of ...
> You are reinventing RDF?
>
Among the nicer things, I have been accused of reinventing snake oil, text editors, hierarchal dbs, networks dbs, Prolog and LISP. Now I can add another to the list :)

It seems RDF's original function was to model meta-data about the resources of the web. RDF seems to be related to / embedded in XML. Below is an example I found in a tutorial. Could anyone show how to use RDF to store/query the data in above example?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">   <rdf:Bag ID="mybag">

    <rdf:li resource="http://rama.cpe.fr/index.html"/>
    <rdf:li resource="mailto:champin_at_cpe.fr"/>
    <rdf:li> literal element </rdf:li>