Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
References:
Barker, R., "CASE Method -- Entity Relationships Modelling", Oracle Corporation UK
Limited, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1990
Guizzardi, G., Herre, H., Wagner, G. „On the General Ontological Foundations of
Conceptual Modeling“ In: Proceedings of 21th International Conference on
Conceptual Modeling, (ER2002), 2002 Okt 07-11; Tampere, Finland. pp. 97-112.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin: Springer
● Definition
● No matter what is an adopted software life cycle model it is better not to skip
conceptual modeling
Introduction: data modeling techniques / Barker's notation
Barker's Notation:
● Data Flows
● Entity Relationships
Barker's notations: elements
Basic Elements:
● Entity
● Attribute
● Relationship
● Unique identifiers
Additional Constructs:
● Subsumption of entities
● Constraints on relationships
Entity
Components:
● Name – singular form
● At least two attributes
Notation:
round cornered rectangle with a name, attributes and their types labels displayed inside it
PASSENGER
# id
* name
* surname
o phone
Attributes
Components:
● unique name
● Type label
● Datatypes and domains are not included in the notation
Attributes types:
# Unique Identifier (UID), with # are marked attributes that constitute UID
* Mandatory Attribute
o Optional Attribute
Subtypes of entities
PERSON
* name
* surname
PILOT
* authorization
PASSENGER
o phone
Relationships
● Relationships are named significant associations between two entities
● Each relationship has:
● a name – proposition
● 2 endings
optional may
mandatory must
LOCATION FLIGHT
* city start from # flight no
* country * status
destination to
Unique identifiers
● UID is any combination of attributes and relationships which uniquely identifies an instance
of an entity
● Attributes which are part of the UI are marked with #
● Relations are marked by a short line across the relationship near the entity being identified
● UID is a primary key
● Foreign keys are not displayed at the diagram
AIRPLANE
FLIGHT uses performs # serial no
# flight no • model
* status • capacity
Constraints
PERSON
* name
* surname FLIGHT
# flight no
in * status
PILOT
* authorization
CARGO
* substance Transported in
* weight
* capacity
Refining the model
n-arity (where n>2) relations are introduced by means of the intersection entities too
Comments
● Few distinct and intuitive symbols – easy to read for untrained users
● Optionality of attributes displayed
● Subtypes displayed inside an entity – unables modeling of deep hierarchical structures
● Relationships named by propositions not by verbs
● Constraints on relationships
Ontological refinement
● Constraint specification.
Ontological refinements example: ontological markers
FLIGHT <proc>
# flight no
* status
Ontological refinements example: ontological markers
TIME <Chron>
FLIGHT <proc> dep <lb>
a) # flight no
* status
arr <rb>
b) FLIGHT <proc>
# flight no
* status
* time dep <lb>
* time arr <rb>
Ontological Refinement - Benefits