Management of Compound Values¶

Virtual DataPort has two classes of data types: simple types and compound types. Compound types (array and register) represent hierarchical data in the Virtual DataPort base relations and views.

Each attribute value of a view in the Server can be uniquely identified within a tuple using an expression called URI. The URI associated with the value of an attribute belonging to a simple type simply consists of the name of the attribute. On the other hand, the value of a compound attribute is represented using a tree, in which the leaves are atomic values (i.e. belonging to simple data types). There are two types of non-leaf nodes in these trees:

• Arrays (array type): from these, an arch runs to each of the nodes that represent the subelements that comprise the array (all belong to the same register data type). Each arch is tagged with the position index of the array subelement being indicated, written between the symbols “[” and “]”.

• Registers (register type): from these, an arch runs to each of the nodes that represent the subelements that comprise the register (each subelement is related to a field of the record that can belong to a different data type). Each arch is tagged with the name of the field.

Furthermore, an arch with the attribute name indicates the root of the tree.

Given this tree, a URI that identifies a node of same is obtained starting with the root and moving down the tree, concatenating (separated by the character “.” except in the case of array indexes, in which it will be indicated the index value between brackets) the names of the different arches until arriving at the required node. Finally, the name of the attribute is concatenated at the beginning of the string. Furthermore, if in a URI for an array-type node no index is specified, then the URI indicates the list of values of the array.

Therefore, we can distinguish two types of URIs:

1. Those that indicate a simple type or a register type value.

   This type of URIs can be used in the SELECT clause of the queries or as group-by attributes in a GROUP BY clause. If, in addition, a simple type value is pointed, then this URI can be used in the same manner as any other simple-type attribute in a query statement: in the clauses SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, etc. It is also possible to use the ROW and { } constructors (see section Conditions with Compound Values) to build compound values and use them in the right side of a condition. In this case, the operators = and <> are the only ones allowed, and the data types of the URIs on the right and left side of the condition must be compatible (that is, their trees must be equal except for the arc names).

2. Those that indicate a list of values. These URIs correspond to array values and therefore, can be seen as a subrelation, where each array element is a tuple and the schema of this tuple is defined by the register element fields associated with the array.

   This type of URIs may appear in the following scenarios:

   1. In conditions of the WHERE clause, these URIs can appear on the left side of a condition. In this case, the conditions are evaluated, as if they were a condition on the subrelation modeled by the URI.

   2. In a Flatten view used in the FROM clause. See section FLATTEN View (Flattening Data Structures).

   3. Aggregation functions (see section Use of Aggregation Functions) support this type of URIs.