System and method for constructing the unordered collection and ordered collection in the data store

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system and a method for extending the UDT framework of an extended relational data store (ERDS) to include support for unordered collections and ordered collections.;SOLUTION: An UDT infrastructure, CLR generics, and a new UNNEST operator are used to create and utilize a special type abstraction for collections that is simultaneously a scalar and a relation. As a scalar, this collection type can be processed by all parts of the data store engine that understands scalars and, as a relation, this collection type is queriable like any other type of relation. Figure 4 (not shown) is a process flowchart showing a method for processing a query applied to the collections in an entity.;COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI