The universal relation as a database interface

Abstract

The universal relation is a way of overcoming users' prime database access difficulty, namely navigation through database structures. As a result there is reduced user involvement with the underlying logical database structure. The universal relation is an imaginary relation that contains all the data in the database. Data element roles and 'flavours weak universal relations, and cycles in database structures are important related issues. Practical universal relation implementations include the computational approach, where the universal relation is generated; the use of multiple predefined views, and the window generation method. The latter has been most popular, largely due to the demands made on hardware by the processing of user views.