The development of ordered SQL packages for modelling advanced applications

The ordered relational model is an extension of the relational model which incorporates partial orderings into data domains. We have already defined and implemented a minimal extension of SQL, called OSQL, which allows querying over ordered relational databases. One of the important facilities provided by OSQL is that it allows users to capture the underlying semantics of the ordering of the data for a given application. Herein we demonstrate that OSQL aided with a package discipline can be an effective means to manage the inter-related operations and the underlying data domains of a wide range of advanced application such as: tree-structured information, temporal information, incomplete information and fuzzy information. We illustrate with examples the uses of some generic operations arising from these applications in the form of four OSQL packages called: OSQL_TREE, OSQL_TIME, OSQL_INCOMP and OSQL_FUZZY, respectively