REPRESENTING RELATIONAL SCHEMA INFORMATION USING GENERIC META SCHEMAS

In an embodiment, a computer system defines a generic relational meta-schema (GRMS), where the GRMS describes a generic representation for relational schemas and where the GRMS includes metadata indicating how a relational schema is to be stored as data in the data store. The computer system also defines describes a generic relational data schema (GRDS), where the GRDS describes a generic representation for relational data and where the GRDS includes metadata that indicates how relational data is to be stored in the data store in a generic fashion not necessarily complying with the relational schema for the data. Next, the computer system stores data in the data store according to the generic relational data schema and stores metadata as data in the data store according to the generic relational meta-schema.