Object-relational mapping with SqueakSave

Abstract

Object persistence is an important aspect of application architectures and development processes. Different solutions in this field evolved over the last decades and new approaches are still subject to research. While object-oriented databases become increasingly popular, the usage of relational databases through an object-relational mapping layer is still one of the most widely adopted techniques. However, most object-relational frameworks require a considerable amount of mapping descriptions between object models and relational database schemas. This additional layer has to be maintained by developers along with the object model itself. In this paper, we present an approach to object-relational mapping that utilizes the introspection and intercession features of Smalltalk to free developers from manually creating those mapping descriptions. The presented framework analyzes the existing models and automatically deduces suitable database schemas. Thus, it aids development processes by neglecting the need for a separate mapping layer. A detailed introduction of the programming interface is followed by a description of the framework's internal implementation details. Additionally, the performance of the framework is evaluated through a comparison against a comparable system for the same programming environment.