Dataphor is a truly relational database management system: Dataphor is considered a virtual, or federated, DBMS.

Dataphor was created by Alphora, a division of Enterprise resource planning and Customer relationship mangement systems developer Softwise. It is the first truly RDBMS since IBM Business System 12. Its D4 (programming language) language is based on the principles of Christopher J Date s and Hugh Darwen s Tutorial D, but with a Pascal (programming language)-like syntax.

Dataphor does not employ SQL as its primary database language since SQL inherently violates several principles of the relational model. There is a slightly modified SQL dialect they call RealSQL that has limited functionality in Dataphor. It had to incorporate SQL NULLs, in a slightly modified form as nil s due to its federated nature that relies on SQL DBMSs.

Dataphor includes tools which allow complete GUI applications to be derived directly from the data model using only the principles of relational calculus.

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