MODELLING THE INFORMATION SPACE IN PHYSICAL STORAGE AT DIFFERENT LEVELS OF DETAIL.

Set theory and algebra are convenient tools which have been used quite extensively to describe data bases from the logical point of view. This approach is carried one step further by observing that the semantics of the connectivities at the encoding level can be conveyed with the same formalism. To provide for the actual binding with the physical device level the notion of an address space function is introduced, which describes various degrees of relative positioning on physical devices. This methodology is developed with an eye toward a special purpose simulation language for data base systems and allows not only for the representation of data at different hierarchical levels, but also at various degrees of detail, as desired by the simulator.