Database Design Tools: An Expert System Approach

In this paper, we report on the implementation of SECSI, an expert system for database design written in Prolog. Starting from an application description given with either a subset of the natural language, or a formal language, or a graphical interface, the system generates a specific semantic network portraying the application. Then, using a set of design rules, it completes and simplifies the semantic network up to reach flat normalized relations. All the design is interactively done with the end-user. The system is evolutive in the sense that it also offers an interactive interface which allows the database design expert to modify or add design rules.

[1]  Tan Tahn Joo,et al.  Datadict - A Data Analysis and Logical Database Design Tool , 1984, VLDB.

[2]  Carlo Zaniolo,et al.  On the design of relational database schemata , 1981, TODS.

[3]  William Kent,et al.  Limitations of record-based information models , 1979, TODS.

[4]  Frederick Hayes-Roth,et al.  Knowledge-Based Expert Systems , 1984, Computer.

[5]  Robert Brown,et al.  LAURA: A Formal Data Model and her Logical Design Methodology , 1983, VLDB.

[6]  Georges Gardarin,et al.  The Design of an Expert System for Database Design , 1983, ICOD-2 Workshop on New Applications of Data Bases.

[7]  Patrick Valduriez,et al.  Design and implementation of an extendible integrity subsystem , 1984, SIGMOD '84.

[8]  Dennis McLeod,et al.  Database description with SDM: a semantic database model , 1981, TODS.

[9]  Peter P. Chen.  The entity-relationship model: toward a unified view of data , 1975, VLDB '75.

[10]  David W. Shipman,et al.  The functional data model and the data languages DAPLEX , 1981, TODS.

[11]  John Mylopoulos,et al.  A language facility for designing database-intensive applications , 1980, TODS.

[12]  Philip A. Bernstein,et al.  Computational problems related to the design of normal form relational schemas , 1979, TODS.

[13]  E. F. Codd,et al.  Extending the database relational model to capture more meaning , 1979, ACM Trans. Database Syst..

[14]  Diane C. P. Smith,et al.  Database abstractions: aggregation and generalization , 1977, TODS.

[15]  Ronald Fagin,et al.  Multivalued dependencies and a new normal form for relational databases , 1977, TODS.