An object database or object-oriented database is a database management system in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. Object databases are different from relational databases which are table-oriented. A third type, object–relational databases, is a hybrid of both approaches. Object databases have been considered since the early 1980s.
Object–relational mapping in computer science is a programming technique for converting data between a relational database and the memory of an object-oriented programming language. This creates, in effect, a virtual object database that can be used from within the programming language.
An object–relational database (ORD), or object–relational database management system (ORDBMS), is a database management system (DBMS) similar to a relational database, but with an object-oriented database model: objects, classes and inheritance are directly supported in database schemas and in the query language. Also, as with pure relational systems, it supports extension of the data model with custom data types and methods.
Lighthouse Design Ltd. was an American software company that operated from 1989 to 1996. Lighthouse developed software for NeXT computers running the NeXTSTEP operating system. The company was founded in 1989 by Alan Chung, Roger Rosner, Jonathan Schwartz, Kevin Steele and Brian Skinner, in Bethesda, Maryland. Lighthouse later moved to San Mateo, California. In 1996, Lighthouse was acquired by Sun Microsystems.
ObjectStore is a commercial object database, a specialized type of NoSQL database designed to handle data created by applications that use object-oriented programming techniques, avoiding the object–relational mapping overhead required when using object-oriented data with a relational database. It is inspired by the Statice database originally developed at Symbolics.
In software, a data access object (DAO) is a pattern that provides an abstract interface to some type of database or other persistence mechanism. By mapping application calls to the persistence layer, the DAO provides data operations without exposing database details. This isolation supports the single responsibility principle. It separates the data access the application needs, in terms of domain-specific objects and data types, from how these needs can be satisfied with a specific DBMS.
The Object Data Management Group (ODMG) was conceived in the summer of 1991 at a breakfast with object database vendors that was organized by Rick Cattell of Sun Microsystems. In 1998, the ODMG changed its name from the Object Database Management Group to reflect the expansion of its efforts to include specifications for both object database and object–relational mapping products.
Hibernate ORM is an object–relational mapping tool for the Java programming language. It provides a framework for mapping an object-oriented domain model to a relational database. Hibernate handles object–relational impedance mismatch problems by replacing direct, persistent database accesses with high-level object handling functions.
Object–relational impedance mismatch is a set of difficulties going between data in relational data stores and data in domain-driven object models. Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) is the standard method for storing data in a dedicated database, while object-oriented (OO) programming is the default method for business-centric design in programming languages. The problem lies in neither relational databases nor OO programming, but in the conceptual difficulty mapping between the two logic models. Both logical models are differently implementable using database servers, programming languages, design patterns, or other technologies. Issues range from application to enterprise scale, whenever stored relational data is used in domain-driven object models, and vice versa. Object-oriented data stores can trade this problem for other implementation difficulties.
A web framework (WF) or web application framework (WAF) is a software framework that is designed to support the development of web applications including web services, web resources, and web APIs. Web frameworks provide a standard way to build and deploy web applications on the World Wide Web. Web frameworks aim to automate the overhead associated with common activities performed in web development. For example, many web frameworks provide libraries for database access, templating frameworks, and session management, and they often promote code reuse. Although they often target development of dynamic web sites, they are also applicable to static websites.
iBATIS is a persistence framework which automates the mapping between SQL databases and objects in Java, .NET, and Ruby on Rails. In Java, the objects are POJOs. The mappings are decoupled from the application logic by packaging the SQL statements in XML configuration files. The result is a significant reduction in the amount of code that a developer needs to access a relational database using lower level APIs like JDBC and ODBC.
Jakarta Persistence, also known as JPA is a Jakarta EE application programming interface specification that describes the management of relational data in enterprise Java applications.
GemStone/S is computer software, an application framework that was first available for the programming language Smalltalk as an object database. It is proprietary commercial software.
OpenJPA is an open source implementation of the Java Persistence API specification. It is an object-relational mapping (ORM) solution for the Java language, which simplifies storing objects in databases. It is open-source software distributed under the Apache License 2.0.
Apache Cayenne is an open source persistence framework licensed under the Apache License, providing object-relational mapping (ORM) and remoting services. Cayenne binds one or more database schemas directly to Java objects, managing atomic commit and rollbacks, SQL generation, joins, sequences, and more. With Cayenne's Remote Object Persistence, those Java objects can even be persisted out to clients via Web Services. Or, with native XML serialization, objects can be further persisted to non-Java clients—such as an Ajax-capable browser.
Apache ObJectRelationalBridge (OJB) is an Object/Relational mapping tool that allows transparent persistence for Java Objects against relational databases. It was released on April 6, 2005.
Craig L. Russell is an American software architect and author. He contributed to the book 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know.
db4o was an embeddable open-source object database for Java and .NET developers. It was developed, commercially licensed and supported by Actian. In October 2014, Actian declined to continue to actively pursue and promote the commercial db4o product offering for new customers.
Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is an application programming interface (API) for the Java programming language which defines how a client may access a database. It is a Java-based data access technology used for Java database connectivity. It is part of the Java Standard Edition platform, from Oracle Corporation. It provides methods to query and update data in a database, and is oriented toward relational databases. A JDBC-to-ODBC bridge enables connections to any ODBC-accessible data source in the Java virtual machine (JVM) host environment.
Oracle TopLink is a mapping and persistence framework for Java developers. TopLink is produced by Oracle and is a part of Oracle's OracleAS, WebLogic, and OC4J servers. It is an object-persistence and object-transformation framework. TopLink provides development tools and run-time functionalities that ease the development process and help increase functionality. Persistent object-oriented data is stored in relational databases which helps build high-performance applications. Storing data in either XML or relational databases is made possible by transforming it from object-oriented data.
