A METHOD FOR THE RECOVERY OF INCLUSION DEPENDENCIES FROM DATA-INTENSIVE BUSINESS PROGRAMS

Data integrity constraints usually form a major component in a data-in tensive business system. To successfully reengineer a data-intensive b usiness system, its data integrity constraints must be understood. Inc lusion dependencies constitute an important type of data integrity con straints. They are very important for migrating a system to the object -oriented technology. Many of the world's data-intensive business syst ems have been developed on old generation database technologies which do not support the specification of inclusion dependencies in the sche mas. As a result, most of the inclusion dependencies are enforced in t he programs which update the databases. However, no approach has been proposed for the recovery of inclusion dependencies from programs. We develop a theory for inferring inclusion dependencies in a database fr om the programs which update the database. With the use of the theory, an approach for the recovery of inclusion dependencies from programs is consequently proposed. The proposed approach can recover those incl usion dependencies which cannot be found by the existing approaches. A s opposed to the existing approaches, the inclusion dependencies recov ered from the proposed approach are proven by analysing the programs w hich update the databases.