Toward a theory of encoded data structures and data translation

Several models of data base systems have distinguished levels of abstraction ranging from the high-level entity set model down to the low-level physical device level. This paper presents a model for describing data encodings, an intermediate level which focuses on the relationship among data items as demonstrated by contiguity or by pointer connections. Multiple data encodings for a file are shown and transformation functions that describe the translation between data encodings are discussed.