An Efficient Approach for Detecting and Repairing Data Inconsistencies Resulting from Retroactive Updates in Multi-temporal and Multi-version XML Databases

Multi-temporal XML databases supporting schema versioning contain XML elements of different temporal formats (snapshot, transaction-time, valid-time, and bitemporal), defined under several XML schema versions. These databases support three types of data updates concerned with the time when updates are made: retroactive, proactive, or on-time, dealing with past, future, or current data respectively. A retroactive update (i.e., modifying or deleting a past element) due to a detected error means that the database has included erroneous information during some period in the past and, therefore, its consistency should be restored by correcting all errors and inconsistencies that have occurred in the past. Indeed, all processings that have been carried out during the inconsistency period and have used erroneous information have normally produced erroneous information. In this work, we propose an approach which preserves data consistency in multi-temporal and multi-version XML databases. More precisely, after any retroactive update, the proposed approach allows (i) detecting and analyzing periods of database inconsistency, which result from that update, and (ii) repairing of all inconsistencies and recovery of all side effects.