Function-based indexing for object-oriented databases
Deborah J. Hwang · 1994
Object-oriented databases have been developed to allow applications to store persistent data in the form of objects. As in conventional databases, object-oriented databases need to support queries that allow associative access to data by describing a property of the data of interest. In particular, they should support queries over user-defined sets based on user-defined functions that compute the property of interest. To make such function-based queries run faster, we must support function-based indexes where the keys are these computed properties. Function-based indexes are harder to maintain than indexes in conventional databases because mutations that affect keys can be done without accessing an element of the indexed set.