Copyright (c) 1997 Joshua Nathaniel Pritikin.  All rights reserved.
This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.


Name           DSLI  Description                                  Info
-----------    ----  -------------------------------------------- -----
ObjStore       Rm+O  ObjectStore OODBMS Interface                 JPRIT

Interface to ObjectStore OODBMS (http://www.odi.com).  Stores scalars,
sets, hashes, and references directly in the database without
flattening nested or circular structures.  Databases can be accessed
from Perl, C++, or Java.  Designed for easy extension of the internal
data representation or data types of built-in data structures.  Uses
the virtual memory mechanism to make read/write access nearly as fast
as memory mapped files.
Available via http://www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/by-module/ObjStore

           << This is the relational database killer app! >>


Perl-ObjectStore mailing list:

majordomo@parallax.co.uk   "subscribe perl-objectstore you@your.company.com"


see ./INSTALL for installation instructions
see ./TODO for list of things to do
see ./CHANGES for a historical perspective


### FUTURE PLANS ###

Preliminary design of Verity full text indexing interface below.  Should
the index membership be kept in each member or not?  Leaning towards 'no'.

$Txt->index($indexHandle, $userPointer)
	$indexHandle - the specific Verity index object
	$userPointer - returned together with the match score after a search

  This can be called multiple times for different indexes.  The OSSV will
  keep track of the indexes to which it has been added?

$Txt->reindex;                   # called if string is changed
$Txt->unindex([$indexHandle]);   # called upon destruction


### RECENT CHANGES ###


** 08-11-97 Released 1.10

- Overloaded the '""' (stringify) operator for persistent objects.

- ospeek [-addr]

- Important typemap fixes plus other minor stuff.


** 08-06-97 Released 1.09

- At our site we are now using osperl for about 2GB worth of data!

- Now built to a shared library!!  Anyone up for Apache/Perl/ObjectStore?

- New, Improved Documentation.

- Persistent blessings now fully tested and working.

- ObjectStore transactions and exceptions now fully integrated into
Perl.  Cursors have been removed from persistent data; read_only
transactions now properly supported.  Read_only transactions are
blazingly fast!

- Regularized allocators.  Specify cardinality when creating containers.
  new ObjStore::$type($near, $card);  Customize representation selector.

- Regularized peristent typing in preparation for extensibility.

- Peek rewrite with ideas from Data::Dumper.  Peek on circular data
structures.  Peek reports percent utilization to the delight of the
accountants everywhere.

- Unions removed from the schema.  This major fix makes it possible to
evolve databases in the event of future schema enhancements.

- Reference counts are now 32bits wide and check for overflow.

- Static functions (e.g. ObjStore::Segment::of) are now called with ::
instead of -> for greater efficiency.

- Plus hundreds of fixes...

