Download The Antelope Relational Database Management System

• The detailed schema often makes it possible to form the natural joins between
tables without explicitly specifying the join conditions.
• Datascope schema files and database tables are stored in normal ASCII files on
the UNIX file system. These files can be viewed and edited using normal text
editors (although it is inadvisable to hand edit database tables). File access permissions are controlled through the normal UNIX file permissions.
• The keys in Datascope tables may include ranges, like a beginning and an ending time. This is useful, and sometimes essential, for time dependent parameters, like instrument settings. Indexes may be formed on these ranges, and these
indexes can considerably speed join operations. (When two tables are joined by
time range keys, the join condition is that the time ranges overlap.)
• Datascope has an embedded expression calculator which can be used to form
joins, sorts and subsets. This calculator contains many functions which are
peculiar to environmental science applications, such as spherical geometry,
exhaustive time conversion functions and seismic travel time functions.
Datascope: What is it good for?
Relational database systems are a proven method for representing certain types of
information, much more powerful than the traditional grab-bag approach of data
files, log files, handwritten notes, and ad hoc data formats. Datascope is a generalpurpose relational database management system which is ideal for managing the
large and complex data volumes that are produced by a modern environmental
monitoring network. It is relatively easy and intuitive when compared to other commercial database products. It provides a way of moving from the traditional plethora of formats to a better approach which organizes the data, documents it, and
provides powerful tools for manipulating it.
Datascope should be useful to anyone who needs to organize data and is interested
in applying relational database technology, but can’t afford the time, learning,
development, and people resources which most other commercial database systems
require.
Datascope: A Tutorial
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