A taxonomy of time databases

The need for supporting time varying information in databases has been recognized for quite some time Many authors have proposed numerous schemes to satisfy this need by incorporating one or two time attributes in the database. Unfortunately, there has been confusion concerning the terminology and definition of theae trme attributes This paper proposes a new taxonomy of three times for use in databases, one that is more cleanly defined, that may be conceptualized tn a prctoraal fashron, and that defines several krnda of databases differentiated by their ability to represent temporal tnjormatton The paper argues that future database management ayatema should aupport all three ttme8 to fully capture time varying behavior.