The Database System Simulator (DBSS): Data description and data access capabilities

Abstract

This paper presents a simulation sublanguage specifically attuned to the needs of database designers and analysts. This language consists of: (a) facilities for representing logical data structures and for mapping these onto an address space, and (b) data access commands which use these data structure facilities to simulate database traversal. Both the data structure facilities and the data access commands are patterned after the CODASYL data model, a widely known model for which many implementations exist. This paper illustrates the use of the DBSS commands with examples and explains their effect on the internal structure of the supporting facilities.