ER model Partitioning: Towards Trustworthy Automated Systems Development

TL;DR

This paper discusses a formal approach to partitioning ER models to ensure trustworthy and lossless transformation to relational schemas, aiming to improve automated database development and conceptual modeling accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a method for partitioning ER models into unique segments to facilitate formal proof of lossless transformation to relational schemas.

Findings

Proposes a partitioning approach for ER models

Lays groundwork for formal proof of transformation correctness

Highlights significance for automated database development

Abstract

In database development, a conceptual model is created, in the form of an Entity-relationship(ER) model, and transformed to a relational database schema (RDS) to create the database. However, some important information represented on the ER model may not be transformed and represented on the RDS. This situation causes a loss of information during the transformation process. With a view to preserving information, in our previous study, we standardized the transformation process as a one-to-one and onto mapping from the ER model to the RDS. For this purpose, we modified the ER model and the transformation algorithm resolving some deficiencies existed in them. Since the mapping was established using a few real-world cases as a basis and for verification purposes, a formal-proof is necessary to validate the work. Thus, the ongoing research aiming to create a proof will show how a given ER model can be partitioned into a unique set of segments and use it to represent the ER model itself. How the findings can be used to complete the proof in the future will also be explained. Significance of the research on automating database development, teaching conceptual modeling, and using formal methods will also be discussed.