Announcing a free relational database management system. Designed
for assisting the teaching of the relational database model, LEAP
is available for use without charge.

LEAP, which has been made available before, offers a wealth of new 
functionality addressing the majority of identified shortcomings in 
earlier releases, making it a far more powerful tool.

LEAP, in summary, offers the following:

* A relational algebra query language. Examples taken directly from
  major DBMS texts (such as C.J.Date) are included in the examples.
* Complete support of the structural and behavioural components of
  the relational model.
* Multiple data types.
* A rudimentary data dictionary.
* Multiple databases, including example databases based on published text
  examples.
* Online help.
* Operator timing, enabling the execution time of queries to be compared
  and evaluated.
* Extensive documentation/user manual.

LEAP is used as a teaching aid in the database courses at Oxford Brookes
University, and a number of other establishments use it and make it
available for students.

The source code for LEAP is also available for interested parties. Contact
the author for details on how to get the code.

Full information on the functionality of LEAP is available in the 
distribution, which can be downloaded through any of the following ftp 
sites:

ftp://micros.hensa.ac.uk/micros/ibmpc/dos/k/k174
ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/compsci/databases/leap

LEAP is also available from the SimTel archive. The 
main SimTel site/directory/file is:

ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos/math/leapb10.zip

The SimTel archive is mirrored around the world. For a list of mirrors,
download the following file:

ftp://oak.oakland.edu/Simtel/msdos/docs/mirrors.inf

Links to all of the known ftp sites containing LEAP (including most of
the SimTel mirrors), plus lots more information, is available on the LEAP 
home page - Which has been completely revised for this new version of LEAP:

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/cms/students/richard_leyton/leap.html

New to the home page is an html version of the LEAP user manual, which
contains examples of LEAP in operation.

For all correspondence regarding LEAP, send e-mail to the author. Especially
of interest are bug reports, suggestions, and comments. If LEAP is made
use of in a teaching environment, your experiences are very valuable
to make LEAP a more powerful tool.

Regards,

Richard Leyton

mailto:richard_leyton@mail.amsinc.com
