Making an Array Database Language Server-Side Extensible

Server-side extensibility through dynamically linked external code is a common method in relational databases. In the field of Array Databases such User-Defined Functions (UDFs) sometimes even represent the architectural cornerstone for array functionality. On the downside, UDF implementation often suffers from high coding complexity.The rasdaman Array DBMS is a full-stack C++ implementation, so does not rely on some generic UDF mechanism. This allowed designing such an API from scratch, with particular emphasis on UDF coder convenience. The rasdaman UDFs rely on the general C++ client API classes. Based on a straightforward UDF interface definition adapter code is generated automatically. Experimental evaluation shows encouraging results, and the mechanism is going to be used in research and under operational conditions. We present the approach and motivate it through practical use cases.