Integrating a part relationship into an open OODB system using metaclasses
Michael H Halper, James Geller, Yehoshua Perl, Wolfgang Klas · 1994
The part-whole semantic relationship (the part relationship, for short) is an important modeling primitive in many advanced application domains such as manufacturing, design, and document processing. In this paper, we examine the problem of integrating such a construct into an OODB system. Specifically, two questions are addressed in this regard. This first is: Can a part relationship be made an intrinsic construct of an existing OODB system without having to rewrite a substantial portion of the system? The second: Can an “open” OODB system which claims to support such an integration really do so, and, more specifically, can the integration be done using a metaclass mechanism which purports to bring extensibility to the VODAK Model Language (VML)?