Figure 13. Example of constraints on reflexive relationship for class A having mandatory relationship with class B
8. The summary of stereotypes and tags for representation of integrity constraints
All proposed stereotypes and tags are listed in Table 1 (standard UML stereotypes as <<enumera-tion>>, <<dataType>> are not included here). They may be considered as potential UML profile for precise conceptual modelling including integrity con-straints. Stereotypes proposed for conceptual mo-delling in 0, 0 have strong semantic issues for
Abstract. Integrity constraints are incident part of conceptual models, including part of semantics of problem domain. Analysis of the most important methods of conceptual modelling has revealed that none of them analyze the complete set of integrity const
E.Miliauskait , L.Nemurait
Table 1. Stereotypes and tags for conceptual modelling Tags Rn
Type of tagged value
Variable string (concatenation of “R”
and association number in model) Variable sequence (inclusion of tags of associations) Description
Association number (tag introduced for reference)
Association constrained by path of associations
with expression for derivation constraint on attribute/association
Constrained path of Rn} associations
association mandatory constraint constraint constraint
association
and number of disjunctive mandatory constraint of class/model)
“equ” and number of equal set constraint of class)
string “equ”, and the rest elements are tags of associations of constrained path
“xor” and number of constrained group of attributes of
class/associations of model) Variable string (concatenation of “EU” and number of external uniqueness constraint of model)
Ri,…Rk} constraint on path of associations
constraint
attributes/ associations Attribute
External uniqueness constraint
{EUn}
constraint Internal uniqueness constraint Acyclic, Asymmetric,
Intransitive, Symmetric, Antisym-metric Primary identifier attribute
Attribute association
{Un} }
{acyclic} {asymmetric}{intransitive}{symmetric}
{antisym-metric} {P} and number of identifier of class) Variable string (concatenation of “U” and number of internal uniqueness constraint of object type) Participation in external uniqueness constraint on attribute. Tag is displayed beside attributes of object types constrained by external uniqueness
constraint. It must be supplemented with expression for constraint with expression for constraint
more elements of UML model Participation in internal uniqueness constraint on attribute
Attribute Constant string
association)
constraint
attributes/ associations
subsetn}
“set”/”subset” and number of constrained group of attributes of class/associations of model)
Part of primary identifier of class (if it is omitted, by default the artificial primary identifier is accepted)
in the list of attributes of class if referential attribute has no other constraints. In such case it is accepted by default as reference to primary identifier of corresponding association member (as in 0).
Abstract. Integrity constraints are incident part of conceptual models, including part of semantics of problem domain. Analysis of the most important methods of conceptual modelling has revealed that none of them analyze the complete set of integrity const
Representation of Integrity Constraints in Conceptual Models
In UML 2.0 version, the capabilities for extension – profiles, stereotypes, tagged values and constraints – were improved and clarified. Simple stereotypes are not adequate for representation of all types of integrity constraints; in such cases the more expressive and compact tagged values were proposed that not only serve for visualisation but also may be used for generation of database schemas and software code. Values of tags are typed; in complicated cases they are derived from elements of UML model.
The proposed list of stereotypes, tags and patterns for OCL constraints may be considered as potential UML profile for precise conceptual modelling inclu-ding integrity constraints.
References
[1] BSBR: Business Semantics of Business Rules. OMG
document bei/2004-01-04, 2004.
[2] J. Debenham. An analysis of Database Rules. Inter-national Database Engineering and Applications Sym-posium (IDEAS '97), August 24 27, Montreal, Cana-da, 1997, 113 120.
[3] Dresden OCL toolkit, 2005, Available at:
/index.html.
[4] M. Gogolla, M. Richters. Expressing UML class dia-grams properties with OCL. Clark, A., Warmer, J. (eds.): Object Modeling with the OCL, The Rationale behind the Object Constraint Language, Springer-Verlag, London, LNCS 2263, 2002, 85–114.
[5] G. Guizzardi, G. Wagner, N. Guarino, M. Sinde-ren. An Ontologically Well-Founded Profile for UML Conceptual Models. In: A.Person and J.Stirna (Eds.): CAISE 2004, LNCS 3084, 2004, 112-126.