Implementation of the CORAL deductive database system

Abstract

CORAL is a deductive database system that supports a rich declarative language, provides a wide range of evaluation methods, and allows a combination of declarative and imperative programming. The data can be persistent on disk or can reside in main-memory. We describe the architecture and implementation of CORAL. There were two important goals in the design of the CORAL architecture: (1) to integrate the different evaluation strategies in a reasonable fashion, and (2) to allow users to influence the optimization techniques used so as to exploit the full power of the CORAL implementation. A CORAL declarative program can be organized as a collection of interacting modules and this modular structure is the key to satisfying both these goals. The high level module interface allows modules with different evaluation techniques to interact in a transparent fashion. Further, users can optionally tailor the execution of a program by selecting from among a wide range of control choices at the level of each module. CORAL also has an interface with C++, and users can program in a combination of declarative CORAL, and C++ extended with CORAL primitives. A high degree of extensibility is provided by allowing C++ programmers to use the class structure of C++ to enhance the CORAL implementation.