Reasoning Methods for Designing and Surveying Relationships Described by Sets of Functional Constraints
Serdica Journal of Computing, Tome 3 (2009) no. 2, pp. 179-204
Cet article a éte moissonné depuis la source Bulgarian Digital Mathematics Library
Current methods of database schema design are usually based
on modeling the real world as entity (or object) classes with relationships
among them. Properties of relationships can be described by semantical
database constraints. One of them is functional dependency, which has a
key role in traditional database design. The three basic types of binary relationships
that can be described by functional dependencies are one-to-one,
one-to-many and many-to-many. They can also be expressed by common
graphical languages like the Entity-Relationship (ER) graph. However, relationships
defined among more than two entity classes (ternary, quaternary,
etc.) are usually not investigated and the common graphical tools lack expressive
power regarding them. We show that the variety of relationship
types is rich for higher arities and propose a simplified formalism for functional
constraints as well as graphical and spreadsheet reasoning methods for
handling sets of functional constraints that also help by relationship design.
Keywords:
Database Schema, Functional Dependency, Entity-Relationship Model, Functional Constraint, Reasoning Method
@article{SJC_2009_3_2_a3,
author = {Demetrovics, J\'anos and Moln\'ar, Andr\'as and Thalheim, Bernhard},
title = {Reasoning {Methods} for {Designing} and {Surveying} {Relationships} {Described} by {Sets} of {Functional} {Constraints}},
journal = {Serdica Journal of Computing},
pages = {179--204},
year = {2009},
volume = {3},
number = {2},
language = {en},
url = {http://geodesic.mathdoc.fr/item/SJC_2009_3_2_a3/}
}
TY - JOUR AU - Demetrovics, János AU - Molnár, András AU - Thalheim, Bernhard TI - Reasoning Methods for Designing and Surveying Relationships Described by Sets of Functional Constraints JO - Serdica Journal of Computing PY - 2009 SP - 179 EP - 204 VL - 3 IS - 2 UR - http://geodesic.mathdoc.fr/item/SJC_2009_3_2_a3/ LA - en ID - SJC_2009_3_2_a3 ER -
%0 Journal Article %A Demetrovics, János %A Molnár, András %A Thalheim, Bernhard %T Reasoning Methods for Designing and Surveying Relationships Described by Sets of Functional Constraints %J Serdica Journal of Computing %D 2009 %P 179-204 %V 3 %N 2 %U http://geodesic.mathdoc.fr/item/SJC_2009_3_2_a3/ %G en %F SJC_2009_3_2_a3
Demetrovics, János; Molnár, András; Thalheim, Bernhard. Reasoning Methods for Designing and Surveying Relationships Described by Sets of Functional Constraints. Serdica Journal of Computing, Tome 3 (2009) no. 2, pp. 179-204. http://geodesic.mathdoc.fr/item/SJC_2009_3_2_a3/