An approach for decomposing N-ary data relationships

The specification of a software system must include all relevant static and dynamic aspects of the domain. Dynamic aspects are usually specified by means of a behavioral schema consisting of a set of system operations that the user may execute to update the system state. To be useful, such a set must be complete (i.e. through these operations, users should be able to modify the population of all elements in the class diagram) and executable (i.e. for each operation, there must exist a system state over which the operation can be successfully applied). A manual specification of these operations is an error-prone and time-consuming activity. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a strategy for the automatic generation of a basic behavior schema. Operations in the schema are drawn from the static aspects of the domain as defined in the UML class diagram and take into account possible dependencies among them to ensure the completeness and executability of the operations.We believe our approach is especially useful in a Model-Driven Development setting, where the full implementation of the system is derived from its specification. In this context, our approach facilitates the definition of the behavioral specification and ensures its quality obtaining, as a result, an improved code generation phase.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

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“…N-ary associations can be easily expressed in terms of a set of binary ones plus additional constraints[24].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic generation of basic behavior schemas from UML class diagrams

Albert

Cabot²,

Gómez³

et al. 2008

Softw Syst Model

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“…McAllister et al (1998) [15] presented a practical eight-step approach for analysis of n-ary relationships and decomposition into simpler relationships wherever appropriate since one of the most significant challenges in the use of ER data models is in deciding whether to use a single relationship between several entities or a set of simpler relationships to represent a complex association based on the relational database design concepts. By using two examples for N:N:1 ternary relationship cardinality, they demonstrated that one relationship must remain as ternary and other relationship can be losslessly decomposed into two binary relationship.…”

Section: Cauadra Et Al (2010)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Methodology for Relational Databases : Issues Related to Ternary Relationships in Entitiy-Relationship Model and Higher Normal Forms

Vimala¹,

Nehemiah²,

Bhuvaneswaran³

et al. 2013

IJDMS

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Entity-Relationship (ER) modeling plays a major role in relational database design. The data requirements are conceptualized using an ER model and then transformed to relations. If the requirements are well understood by the designer and then if the ER model is modeled and transformed to relations, the resultant relations will be normalized. However the choice of modeling relationships between entities with appropriate degree and cardinality ratio has a very severe impact on database design. In this paper, we focus on the issues related to modeling binary relationships, ternary relationships, decomposing ternary relationships to binary equivalents and transforming the same to relations. The impact of applying higher normal forms to relations with composite keys is analyzed.We have also proposed a methodology which database designers must follow during each phase of database design.

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“…1 N-ary associations can be easily expressed in terms of a set of binary ones plus additional constraints [30]. 2 An association class could be represented as a regular class with n associations one for each participant plus a constraint restricting that no instance of the class can be related with the same exact set of participants.…”

Section: Structural Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating operation specifications from UML class diagrams: A model transformation approach

Albert

Cabot

Gómez

et al. 2011

Data & Knowledge Engineering

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ElsevierAlbert Albiol, M.; Cabot Sagrera, J.; Gómez Seoane, C.; Pelechano Ferragud, V. (2011 Abstract.One of the more tedious and complex tasks during the specification of conceptual schemas (CSs) is modeling the operations that define the system behavior. This paper aims to simplify this task by providing a method that automatically generates a set of basic operations that complement the static aspects of the CS and suffice to perform all typical life-cycle create/update/delete changes on the population of the elements of the CS. Our method guarantees that the generated operations are executable, i.e. their executions produce a consistent state wrt the most typical structural constraints that can be defined in CSs (e.g. multiplicity constraints). In particular, our method takes as input a CS expressed as a Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagram (optionally defined using a profile to enrich the specification of associations) and generates an extended version of the CS that includes all necessary operations to start operating the system. If desired, these basic operations can be later used as building blocks for creating more complex ones. We show the formalization and implementation of our method by means of model-tomodel transformations. Our approach is particularly relevant in the context of Model Driven Development approaches.

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An approach for decomposing N-ary data relationships

Cited by 6 publications

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Automatic generation of basic behavior schemas from UML class diagrams

Automatic generation of basic behavior schemas from UML class diagrams

Design Methodology for Relational Databases : Issues Related to Ternary Relationships in Entitiy-Relationship Model and Higher Normal Forms

Generating operation specifications from UML class diagrams: A model transformation approach

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