Extending UML for Object-Relational Database Design

摘要

The most common way of designing databases is using de E/R model without taking into account other views of the system. However, new object-oriented design languages, such as UML (Unified Modelling Language), permit modelling the full system, including the database schema, in a uniform way. Besides, as UML is an extensible language, it allows introducing new stereotypes for specific applications if it is needed. There are some proposals to extend UML with stereotypes for database design but, unfortunately, they are focused on relational databases. However, new applications require representing complex objects related with complex relationships and object-relational databases are more appropriated to support the new application requirements. The framework of this paper is an Object-Relational Database Design Methodology. The methodology defines new UML stereotypes for Object-Relational Database Design and proposes some guidelines to translate an UML schema into an object-relational one. The guidelines are based on the SQL:1999 object-relational model and on Oracle8i as an example of product. In this paper we focus on the UML extensions required for object-relational database design.