LINCKS Overview for Degree Project

LINCKS is a research database system developed at the University of Linkoping, in the IISLAB group since 1986, in a project to explore the area of intelligent information systems.

LINCKS is an object-centered multi-user database system developed for complex information system applications where editing and browsing of information in the database is of paramount importance. The focus is on sharing of small information chunks which combine to make up complex information objects used by different users for different purposes. The current main application is using LINCKS a document database, allowing easy sharing and re-use of document and parts of them.

A brief list of interesting features are:

Multiple users

LINCKS is a multiuser database system

A hypertext-ish database X-windows

based user interface.

Composite objects

Although all objects are built up of small pieces, the user interface presents these as single `composite objects', allowing editing over the entire composite object using an Emacs-like editor.

Database history

the LINCKS system maintains information regarding the history of objects and actions within the system. Object history is maintained at both the single chunk and composite object level. Past versions of objects can be accessed and reactivated.

Alternative views

LINCKS allows a user or application developer to interactively define alternative views on the underlying database objects. This is particularly useful in applications where the same information is to be used for different purposes or by people in differing roles which require a different composition and display.

Information sharing

LINCKS provides an easy way for users to share database objects or for one user to share information across all of her/his accessible objects. This is done by linking objects into composition objects. Thereby, any changes to that object by one user will result in updates to all compositions which have that object as an component.

Parallel Editing Notification

As LINCKS is a multi-user system and allows information sharing, this leads to possible conflicts. Consequently, the LINCKS system maintains a list of objects being edited and issues warnings when parallel editing occurs.

Since LINCKS is written in C, you will be probably using C. Our development environment is Sun, running SunOS 4.1.3, using the X11 window system, but LINCKS is available on most Unix platforms (including linux).

For more information, please contact Martin Sjölin, E++ Bv 129, phone: 013/28 24 10 or mail to marsj@ida.liu.se