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Previous work about database integrity stands on the viewpoint of relational database management systems (RDBMS). Database designers and application programmers must define semantic integrity constraints at the physical table or column level. For complex applications where an automation system (or workbench) is used for database design and programming, both database designers and programmers should be able to definc their constraints at thc conceptual level. In this thcslis. such an automation system is presented. A conceptual-level classification of integrity constraints is proposed. Based on this classilication, a conceptual constraint specification language (CCSL) is designed for programmers to specify integrity constraints at the conceptual level. By using the automation system with CCSL, database can describe their conceptual designs with a rich set of semantic constructs and database programmers can access databases and specify integrity constraints at the conceptual level. The task of database design and programming is simplified and more natural. The productivity for database application development is also increased. More importantly, the portability of conceptual designs and application programs among different RDBMS is easily achieved through this approach because the automation system can generate code (ANSI SQL code) for different underlying RDBMS.
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