A unified interface method for interfacing with a database

Abstract

A graphics user interface called GLAD (Graphics Language for Database) is proposed as a unified interface method for a user interaction with a database. GLAD provides a coherent interaction method for all three user interactions with a database: data definition interaction, data manipulation interaction, and program development interaction. In this paper, the features of data manipulation interaction of GLAD are described. Specifically, the method of representing and manipulating generalized/specialized objects and recursively related objects is presented, and the notion of program box which is used for specifying a complex query is introduced