FORMAL FOUNDATIONS FOR OBJECT-ORIENTED DATA MODELING

Axiomatic definition of the basic structure, called a class dictionary graph, is given, used by object-oriented designers and programmers du ring the software development process. The contributions of this paper are twofold: an axiomatic foundation for object-oriented data modelin g and efficient algorithms for checking whether a given data model sat isfies the axioms. The presented data model is the foundation of a num ber of techniques for developing object-oriented systems including ada ptive software, schema abstraction from object examples, schema optimi zation, planning techniques for system development, the Law of Demeter , etc.