Starcounter unified database pardigm - query language
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Starcounter AB - Starcounter |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 2 368 170 |
| Project duration | March 2014 - June 2015 |
| Status | Completed |
Purpose and goal
Starcounter is well positioned to be one of the key players in this new generation of databases due to its paradigm agnostic kernel. This project extended the generic purpose query language SQL with graph oriented syntax and semantics. The kernel was further improved to support applications with dynamic type models such as graph model. The project generalised Starcounter and its query language to fulfil Unified Database Paradigm.
Results and expected effects
Most of the customers of Starcounter are building graph models. We have extended the SQL language with graph operators, e.g., with transitive closure, in addition to path expressions, inheritance and imperative functions and properties. This project also improved support of dynamic types. The improvements allows our customers to develop extensible and highly complex software. Furthermore, this enables our vision to integrate Starcounter with modern web application languages and platform and to provide flexible and modular way to develop complex enterprise software.
Approach and implementation
The project execution concentrated greatly on physical layer and on declarative and imperative logical layers. The physical layer implemented highly efficient support for dynamic types. The declarative SQL was extended with new syntax and semantics and the updated grammar was verified. The imperative .NET API was extended with support for graph and dynamic type data models.