A Logical Temporal Relational Data Model

Time is one of the most difficult aspects to handle in real world applications such as database systems. Relational database management systems proposed by Codd offer very little built-in query language support for temporal data management. The model itself incorporates neither the concept of time nor any theory of temporal semantics. Many temporal extensions of the relational model have been proposed and some of them are also implemented. This paper offers a brief introduction to temporal database research. We propose a conceptual model for handling time varying attributes in the relational database model with minimal temporal attributes.