A Model for Schema Versioning in Temporal Database Systems

John F. Roddick
Advanced Computing Research Centre, School of Computer and Information Science, University of South Australia, The Levels, Adelaide, South Australia 5095.
roddick@cis.unisa.edu.au

Abstract

The aim of temporal data models is to accommodate the nature of time naturally and directly and avoid the ad hoc, one-off extensions commonly employed. Schema versioning is one of a number of related areas dealing with the general problem of using multiple schemata for various database related tasks. In particular, schema versioning, and its weaker companion, schema evolution, deal with the need to retain current data and software system functionality in the face of changing database structure. This paper brings temporal and evolutionary models together and proposes an extension to temporal data models capable of accommodating partial schema versioning.

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