System and method for generating reports for a versioned database

摘要

A system and method for efficiently storing multiple versions of a data object in a database and generating a report to display a single version of a data object corresponding to any given time are provided. The data object is represented by a versioned data structure that includes a belief time field for storing a belief time corresponding to a version of the data object. A single version of the data object is retrieved by generating SQL code including a select clause for specifying the fields that are required for retrieving the data object and a where clause for specifying the version of the data object to be retrieved. A single foreign key is used to access multiple versions of the same data object.