Iconic object definition system for object-oriented databases

The opportunity to use database systems by computer non-professionals has increased recently, and various systems enabling them to use databases easily have already been presented. Several approaches for schema definition and database querying have been proposed, but not many for object definitions. We propose an iconic object definition/updating system for object-oriented databases, where each class or object is represented by means of an icon. To complete the definition of an object containing complex structure, an icon properly chosen is overlapped over another repeatedly. To assist the user in defining objects, two primitive functions are introduced: constraint checking and configurations. Constraints specified by the combination of particular icons are provided to prevent the object from being inconsistent in the process of defining/updating objects. The configuration helps the user to define structured objects easily in a stepwise, bottom-up/top-down manner. Furthermore, implementational issues of a system prototype are also given