TY - JOUR
T1 - Inheritance hierarchy design in object-oriented databases
AU - Beeri, Catriel
AU - Formica, Anna
AU - Missikoff, Michele
PY - 1999/7
Y1 - 1999/7
N2 - Object-oriented database schema design is still mostly an art. One of the difficulties encountered during design is typing conflicts induced by multiple inheritance. In this paper, we propose a method for treating such a kind of conflicts. Our approach to inheritance conflict solving consists of several ingredients. First, we rely on branding, to introduce `type equivalence by name', thus allowing a designer to distinguish between structurally similar but semantically different types. However, we offer a heuristic that does not require a designer to explicitly state branding declarations. Second, we describe various kinds of conflicts, and we offer a set of procedures that analyze a schema to discover such conflicts, classify them, offering potential solutions, if possible. The procedures have been conceived for a design system that allows a designer maximum flexibility, while guiding him/her to a correct design.
AB - Object-oriented database schema design is still mostly an art. One of the difficulties encountered during design is typing conflicts induced by multiple inheritance. In this paper, we propose a method for treating such a kind of conflicts. Our approach to inheritance conflict solving consists of several ingredients. First, we rely on branding, to introduce `type equivalence by name', thus allowing a designer to distinguish between structurally similar but semantically different types. However, we offer a heuristic that does not require a designer to explicitly state branding declarations. Second, we describe various kinds of conflicts, and we offer a set of procedures that analyze a schema to discover such conflicts, classify them, offering potential solutions, if possible. The procedures have been conceived for a design system that allows a designer maximum flexibility, while guiding him/her to a correct design.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0032678251&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0169-023X(99)00011-7
DO - 10.1016/S0169-023X(99)00011-7
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AN - SCOPUS:0032678251
SN - 0169-023X
VL - 30
SP - 191
EP - 216
JO - Data and Knowledge Engineering
JF - Data and Knowledge Engineering
IS - 3
ER -