Gellish Database - Characteristics

Characteristics

A Gellish database does not have the semantic limitations that conventional databases have, because of the flexible and open Gellish language and because of its standard universal data structure (grammar), which is simple, computer and human interpretable. A Gellish database consists of one or more database tables, each of which has the same table structure (column definitions). Gellish databases are application-independent due to their tables being standardized and universally applicable. A standardized Gellish database table is universally applicable because it enables the application of the following two fundamental principles:

Explicit classification of individual things or explicit specialization of classes, with an unlimited number of classes in a dictionary. The Gellish database table enables to store any kind of object; because any individual object can be introduced by specification of an explicit classification relation between the object and a class, whereas classes (kinds of objects or concepts) can be selected from the very large number of classes that are already defined in the Gellish English Dictionary and if the proper class is not available it can be added by specification of a subtype-supertype relation with a direct supertype of the new class. This is fundamentally different from conventional databases that predefine the object types (classes) about which information can be stored by defining a limited number of entity types and attribute types in a fixed data model.

Explicit classification of relations (facts), by an extensible unlimited number of standardized relation types. The Gellish database table enables to store any kind of fact about any kind of object, because any fact is expressed by a relation, whereas those relations are explicitly classified by relation types that can be selected from the standardized relation types that are defined in the Gellish Dictionary or by relation types that are added to the dictionary as proprietary extensions. This is fundamentally different from conventional databases that predefine a fixed and limited number of relation types between the columns in the database tables (whereas unfortunately those relation types are usually defined only in an implicit way). As a consequence, a Gellish database does not need to be modified or extended when the scope of an application changes and facts from different Gellish databases can be merged and integrated whenever required without a need for a conversion exercise. Furthermore the content of a Gellish Database uses a common Gellish Dictionary for all its data, including for example, equipment types, property types, document types, activity types, etc.