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From: cornell@cs.umass.edu (Matthew Cornell)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.clos,comp.databases,comp.object
Subject: Need persistent object store/o.o.d.b.
Message-ID: <26514@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 91 23:36:36 GMT
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Reply-To: cornell@cs.umass.edu (Matthew Cornell)
Followup-To: comp.lang.clos
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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I need a persistent object store because my masters project is object
oriented and I want to save the objects across sessions. I'm writing
using PCL in Macintosh Allegro Common LISP under the MacOS (not AUX).
From an earlier request to the Mac LISP group I received pointers to
functions for saving objects to (and loading them from) files.
However, it would be much better to have a persistent object store (or
object oriented database). I need one which has these features (I'm
new to the persistent object world so please forgive my needing to
make them explicit):

- load objects on call (no waiting for an entire file to load and
  better use of memory: not all objects must be loaded and some can be
  unloaded if memory gets tight). Ditto for saving.

- distributed store (don't have to know the details of where objects
  are stored and you get transparent network access).

- concurrent object access + security (can protect objects based on user)

- fast saving, loading, and memory access


The ideal solution would be a portable system written in LISP to
support CLOS; another solution involves using an OODB which I can
invoke via foreign function calls to C from LISP. Would anyone who
knows of suitable systems (commercial or academic) please respond to
me? Thank you.

Matthew Cornell
Knowledge Communication Systems Group