Integrity constraints are an essential part of a modern schema definition language. They are useful for semantic specification, update consistency control, query optimization, information preservation, etc. In this paper, we propose UCM, a model of integrity constraints for XML that is both simple and expressive. Because it relies on a single notion of keys and foreign keys, the UCM model is easy to use and makes formal reasoning possible. Because it relies on a powerful type system, the UCM model is expressive, capturing in a single framework the constraints found in relational databases, object-oriented schemas and XML DTDs. We study the problem of consistency of UCM constraints, look at the interaction between constraints and subtyping, and discuss algorithms for implementing these constraints.
Gabriel M. Kuper, Jérôme Siméo