Support for Object-Oriented Database Schema Design

Even with the help of present schema design tools (e.g. graphical editors, EER model techniques, etc) the task of constructing any non-trival object oriented database schema (OODB) is immense. This paper describes a system, TYPSYS, which automatically produces a type hierarchy from information about the leaf object types (types at leaf level of the hierarchy) which are visible from the database requirements. The system can also rationalize any changes to the type hierarchy. 1. Introduction Schema design (Elmasri 1994) is one of the main phases of a database design. The goal of this phase is to produce a conceptual schema, in a high-level data model, that is independent of any implementation specific data model. The conceptual schema is a concise description of the data requirements of the users and includes detailed descriptions of the data types, relationships, and constraints; these are expressed using the concepts provided by the high-level data model. The conceptual schema is then ..