An approach for generating file interfaces

Abstract

This paper deals with generating interfaces to files. The presented approach consists of two main parts: first, describing the file structure in an object-oriented manner, and second, manipulating the files by means of either SQL or ODMG 2.0 object manipulation and querying. The principle of the approach is centered around a powerful specification language. Using this language, the structure of file contents is specified. Given such a specification, a generator automatically installs a corresponding relational database. Moreover, an adapter is generated that parses files and transfers the unstructured data from files to the structured relational database. Afterwards, the data can be handled by means of SQL. In addition, a semantic enrichment process can be used to achieve an object-oriented view of the data and an ODMG 2.0 conforming access.