COODBMS, Phase II

So far, I've described how the content of a Rolon is organized. What has not been addressed is how Rolons are organized. Simply put, they are organized into a bush structure, which is like a family tree--children can have more than one parent, but cyclic structures are not allowed.

A bush structure gives us more flexibility than a pure tree, but at the same time it still works with reference counting. We'll want to add an additional rule however: a rolon should be freed when it is not well known and when it no longer has any parents.

Now here is where we start to employ Classifier Sections. Indeed, we will use two: the Children Classifier Section which has symbolic links to the child Rolons and the Parents Classifier Section which will have symbolic links to the parent Rolons. There is also another restriction which will make implementation easier: The parent and a child Rolons must both be under the same Index.

Now phase II may involve some subclassing, PHandle in particular--both to handle the new reference counting rule and to prevent the generation of links and backlinks. (In this the parent/child relationship will work much the way well known name does, but in both directions.) But it shouldn't be too difficult.

I believe having a means of organizing Rolons is an important part of COODBMS, as otherwise it is simply not complete.