I developed FDL (Functional Database Language) as part
of my Ph.D. research at Birkbeck College during 1986-1989. FDL integrates functional
programming with the Functional Data Model (see right) into one
uniform formalism for both data and computation. FDL improved on previous
implementations of the functional data model by allowing any computable
function to be defined and stored, by supporting arbitrarily nested data
types which are all persistent, and by providing for the representation of
default and incomplete data.
Since that time, FDL has been in active use in the
TRISTARP project at Birkbeck.
Extending the Functional Data Model to computational completeness. A.Poulovassilis and P.King. Proc. International Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT-90), Venice, March 1990, pp 75-91. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 416, Springer-Verlag.
The Implementation of FDL, a Functional Database Language. A.Poulovassilis. The Computer Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp 119-128, 1992. C.U.P.
A Pattern-Matching Algorithm for Functional Databases. A.Poulovassilis. The Computer Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp 195-199, 1993. O.U.P.