Static Analysis Techniques for Predicting the Behavior of Database Production Rules

Methods are given for statically analyzing sets of database production rules to determine if the rules are (1) guaranteed to terminate, (2) guaranteed to produce a unique final database state, and (3) guaranteed to produce a unique stream of observable actions. If the analysis determines that one of these properties is not guaranteed, it isolates the rules responsible for the problem and determines criteria that, if satisfied, guarantee the property. The analysis methods are presented in the context of the Starburst Rule System. 1 Introduction Production rules in database systems allow specification of data manipulation operations that are executed automatically whenever certain events occur or conditions are met, making the database system active [DW92]. Database production rules provide a general and powerful mechanism for many database features, including integrity constraint enforcement, derived data maintenance, triggers, alerters, authorization checking, and versioning. In addit..