2. OVERVIEW OF Damasc
Figure 1 provides an illustration of Damasc’s design. In short,
the file system is augmented with a Parser module that exposes
the data stored in files in a structured logical model (described below).
The logical model is equipped with high-level operators for
querying and updating the data , which in turn provide the foundation
for declarative queries. This concept (popularized in the
databases domain) implies the following: The application specifies
solely what data to retrieve from a file, but not how to retrieve it;
the Query Executor module becomes responsible for transparently
optimizing the retrieval of the requested data, e.g., using indices or
other auxiliary data structures. Damasc also includes an interface
that allows applications to perform their own query optimizations,
bypassing the system optimizer.