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The Object-Oriented Data Model

  1. A data model is a logic organization of the real world objects (entities), constraints on them, and the relationships among objects. A DB language is a concrete syntax for a data model. A DB system implements a data model.
  2. A core object-oriented data model consists of the following basic object-oriented concepts:

    (1) object and object identifier: Any real world entity is uniformly modeled as an object (associated with a unique id: used to pinpoint an object to retrieve).

    (2) attributes and methods: every object has a state (the set of values for the attributes of the object) and a behavior (the set of methods - program code - which operate on the state of the object). The state and behavior encapsulated in an object are accessed or invoked from outside the object only through explicit message passing.

    [ An attribute is an instance variable, whose domain may be any class: user-defined or primitive. A class composition hierarchy (aggregation relationship) is orthogonal to the concept of a class hierarchy. The link in a class composition hierarchy may form cycles. ]

    (3) class: a means of grouping all the objects which share the same set of attributes and methods. An object must belong to only one class as an instance of that class (instance-of relationship). A class is similar to an abstract data type. A class may also be primitive (no attributes), e.g., integer, string, Boolean.

    (4) Class hierarchy and inheritance: derive a new class (subclass) from an existing class (superclass). The subclass inherits all the attributes and methods of the existing class and may have additional attributes and methods. single inheritance (class hierarchy) vs. multiple inheritance (class lattice).





Osmar Zaiane
Mon Jun 29 17:30:13 PDT 1998