A General Formal Framework for Schema Transformation

Authors: 
McBrien, P.; Poulovassilis, A.
Author: 
McBrien, P
Poulovassilis, A
Year: 
1998
Venue: 
Data & Knowledge Engineering, Volume 28, Issue 1 (October 1998)
URL: 
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/mcbrien98general.html
Citations: 
119
Citations range: 
100 - 499

Several methodologies for integrating database schemas have been
proposed in the literature,
using various common data models (CDMs). As part of these
methodologies transformations
have been defined that map between schemas which are in some sense
equivalent.
This paper describes a general framework for formally underpinning
the schema transformation
process. Our formalism clearly identifies which transformations apply
for any instance
of the schema and which only for certain instances. We illustrate the
applicability of the
framework by showing how to define a set of primitive transformations
for an extended ER
model and by defining some of the common schema transformations as
sequences of these
primitive transformations. The same approach could be used to
formally define transformations
on other CDMs.