Enforcing referential integrity for object data documents

A system comprising:

• at least one hardware processor;
• at least one database environment, the database environment supporting triggers and foreign keys;
• at least one application program;
• and
• memory storing:
• a referential integrity metadata framework that:
• identifies classes in a hierarchy of objects,
• identifies, for each class, at least one identifying attribute of the class,
• identifies, for at least some classes, at least one relationship attribute for the class, and
• identifies, for each relationship attribute, a relationship with a corresponding identifying attribute in another class, and
• an initialization module configured to use the referential integrity metadata framework to:
• generate tables in the database environment based on the referential integrity metadata framework, each table corresponding to a class in the referential integrity metadata framework,
• generate primary keys for the tables based on the identifying attributes,
• generate referential integrity structures based on the relationship attributes, and
• generate at least one class-specific procedure for each class, the procedure for a class extracting a value for each identifying attribute and relationship attribute identified in the referential integrity metadata framework for the class, generate a data manipulation language statement using the extracted values, and issue the data manipulation language statement,
• wherein the at least one application program uses the database environment to persist entire object data documents in their entirety and enforce referential integrity in relationships between object data documents.

A method comprising:

• receiving an object data document and an operation to perform on the object data document from an application program;
• determining a class in a referential integrity metadata framework for the object data document, the referential integrity metadata framework specifying at least an identifying attribute and a relationship attribute from the object data document for the class;
• and
• calling a class-specific stored procedure based on the class, the class-specific stored procedure being configured to:
• extract a first value for the identifying attribute from the object data document,
• extract a second value for the relationship attribute from the object data document,
• build a data manipulation language statement using the first value and the second value that performs the operation on a table in a relational database system, the table corresponding to the class in the referential integrity metadata framework and including a column for the identifying attribute, a column for the relationship attribute, and a column that stores the object data document, and
• issue the data manipulation language statement for the relational database system to execute, the relational database system enforcing referential integrity constraints based on the relationship attribute.