Set-oriented production rules in relational database systems

We propose incorporating a production rules facility into a relational database system. Such a facility allows definition of database operations that are automatically executed whenever certain conditions are met. In keeping with the set-oriented approach of relational data manipulation languages, our production rules are also set-oriented—they are triggered by sets of changes to the database and may perform sets of changes. The condition and action parts of our production rules may refer to the current state of the database as well as to the sets of changes triggering the rules. We define a syntax for production rule definition as an extension to SQL. A model of system behavior is used to give an exact semantics for production rule execution, taking into account externally-generated operations, self-triggering rules, and simultaneous triggering of multiple rules.