Abstract
This paper presents an automatic process for reverse engineering the n-ary relationship tables from an operating relational database. This process performs the extraction of cardinality ratios by generating a set of SQL queries for each n-ary relationship table. We focus on realistic assumptions. We suppose that there are no constraints on the uniqueness of the key attribute names and the dependencies are not supposed to be known a priori. A PRO*C program has been implemented, it enables us to automatically build SQL queries via dynamic SQL. We also study the influence of the number of key attributes and the number of tuples upon the performance of our process.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
M. Andersson, “Extracting an Entity Relationship Schema from a Relational Database through Reverse Engineering”, Proceedings of the 13th Int. Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, Springer Verlag, Vol 881,403–419, 1994.
M.Castellanos, “A Methodology for Semantically Enriching Interoperable Databases”, Proceedings of the 11th British National Conference on Databases, 58–75, 1993.
R. Chiang, T. Barron, V. Storey,“Performance Evaluation of Reverse engineering Relational Databases into Extended Entity-Relationship Models”, Proceedings of the 12th Int. Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, Springer Verlag, Vol 823,402–413, 1993.
R. Chiang, T. Barron, V. Storey, “Reverse engineering of relational databases: Extraction of an EER model from a relational database”, Journal of Data and Knowledge Engineering, Vol 12, Nℴ2, 107–142, 1994.
K.H. Davis, A.K. Arora,“Converting a Relational Database Model into an Entity Relationship Model”, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, 1987.
R. Elmasri, S.B. Navathe, “Fundamental of Database Systems”, Benjamin Cummings, 1989.
J.L. Hainaut, C. Tonneau, M. Joris, M. Chandelon, “Transformation-based Database Reverse Engineering”, Proceedings of the 12th Int. Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, Springer Verlag, Vol 823, 364–375, 1993.
I.T. Hawryszkiewycz,“Database Analysis and Design”, Macmillian Publishing, 1991.
P. Johanneson, K. Kalman,“A method for Translating Relational Schemas into Conceptual Schemas”, Proceedings of the 8th Entity-Relationship Approach, Elsevier Science, 271–285, 1990.
T.H. Jones, I.Y. Song,“Binary Representation of Ternary Relationships in ER Conceptual Modeling”, Proceedings of the 14 th Int. Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, Springer Verlag, Vol 1021, 216–225, 1995.
K.M. Markowitz, J.A. Makowsky, “Identifying Extended Entity-Relationship Object Structures in Relational Schemas”, IEEE, Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol 16, Nℴ8, 777–790, 1990.
S.B. Navathe, H. Awong,“Abstracting Relational and Hierarchical Data with a Semantic Data Model”, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, 1987.
J.M. Petit, J. Kouloumdjian, J.F. Boulicaut, F. Toumani,“Using Queries to Improve Database Reverse Engineering”, Proceedings of the 13th Int. Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, Springer Verlag, Vol 881, 369–386, 1994.
O. Signore, M. Loffredo, M. Gregori, M. Cima,“Reconstruction of ER Schema from Database Application: a Cognitive Approach”, Proceedings of the 13th Int. Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, Springer Verlag, Vol 881, 387–402, 1994.
I.Y. Song, T.H. Jones, “Analysis of Binary Relationships within Ternary Relationships in ER Modeling”, Proceedings of the 12th Int. Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach, Springer Verlag, Vol 823, 271–282, 1993.
C. Soutou,“Relational Database Reverse Engineering: Extraction of an IFO2 Schema”, Proceedings of the 6th Int. Conference on Database and Expert Systems (DEXA), Springer Verlag, Vol 978, 469–478, 1995.
C. Soutou,“Algorithms for Building SQL Queries to Improve Relational Database Reverse Engineering”, submitted to publication.
T.J. Teorey,“Database Modelling and Design: The Fundamental Principles”, Morgan Kaufmann, 1994.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Soutou, C. (1996). Extracting n-ary relationships through database reverse engineering. In: Thalheim, B. (eds) Conceptual Modeling — ER '96. ER 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1157. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0019936
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0019936
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-61784-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-70685-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive