A Specification of an Object-Oriented Data Model with Relations

Abstract

A system specification may consist of a formal specification along with an informal textual description. In this paper, we focus on an intermediate level of specification which is semi-formal and describes the overall structure of the system. Here we demonstrate the use of this intermediate level of specification by presenting a meta-circular description of the structural part of a data model and indicating how this may then be transformed into a formal specification in the Z language. This intermediate level of specification serves both as an important stage in the design process and also as a useful part of the documentation of the model. The data model, BROOM, combines features of the object-oriented, entity-relationship, semantic and relational data models.