Definition
The applicability period (or period of applicability) for a modification (generally an insertion, deletion, or update) is the time period that modification is to be applied. Generally the modification is a sequenced modification and the period applies to valid time. This period should be distinguished from lifespan.
Key Points
The applicability period is specified within a modification statement. In constrast, the lifespan is an aspect of a stored fact.
This illustration uses the TSQL2 language, which has an explicit VALID clause to specify the applicability period within an INSERT, DELETE, or UPDATE statement.
For insertions, the applicability period is the valid time of the fact being inserted. The following states that Ben is in the book department for 1 month in 2007.
INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE
VALUES (‘Ben’, ‘Book’)
VALID PERIOD ‘[15 Feb 2007, 15 Mar 2007]’
For a deletion, the applicability period states for what period of time the deletion is to be applied. The following...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Recommended Reading
Snodgrass RT, editor. The TSQL2 temporal query language. Kluwer; 1995.
Snodgrass RT. Developing time-oriented database applications in SQL. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann; 1999.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Jensen, C.S., Snodgrass, R.T. (2016). Applicability Period. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1049-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1049-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering