Automated Mapping and Object Persistence to Relational Databases

We have seen the necessity for the coexistence and collaboration of object-oriented and relational technologies in various industrial project requirements. We are also convinced that, on account to its superior simplicity, the relational model has certain advantages over the object-oriented model for storing and retrieving large, homogeneously structured data. Therefore we are strongly interested in the research as well as in experience gained in industrial projects combining object systems with relational databases. In two collaborating subprojects we are dealing with the issue of mapping objects to relational databases. The first subproject is part of an object-oriented fourth-generation system which offers generic front-end-functionality for a (relational) database. The aim for the second project is to provide a tool that can store and share arbitrary existing objects in a relational database without requiring any changes in the class definition or coding of additional methods. Thus the user does not need to deal with some form of relational model and is able to use the provided storage and retrieval mechanism immediately for an object-oriented application.