Lesson 11: Advanced modeling

Entity and relation types can be treated as implementations of object types with a zero or non-zero number of dependencies respectively.

In the entity-centric framework of the PERA model, application classes are represented by entity types, and references between classes are represented by relation types.

In the type-theoretic framework of the PERA model, application classes are represented by object types, and references between classes are represented by interface types.

Entity types are used to represent application types composed only of primitive types. Relation types are used to represent application types composed of both primitive and composite types.

A database type hierarchy can be used to represent an application class hierarchy, with interfaces and their implementations applied at different levels to represent the capabilities of the constituent classes.

When representing a common capability across different relation types in the type-theoretic PERA framework, the roles representing the capability should have the same name.

The PERA model does not permit the mixing of entity and relation types into a single hierarchy. If an application class hierarchy includes some classes composed only of primitives and some composed of primitives and composites, then a suitable workaround must be selected to model it.

Reification is the process of replacing a role type with a relation type. A type-theoretic data model can be transformed into an entity-centric one by reifying any nested relations.

De-reification is the process of replacing a relation type with a role type. An entity-centric data model can be transformed into a type-theoretic one by de-reifying any binary relation types.

While nested relations should be avoided in the entity-centric PERA framework, they are a common feature in the type-theoretic PERA framework.

Interface implementations can be freely relocated between two object types that have a one-to-one mapping. A binary relation type can be losslessly de-reified by first relocating interface implementations it has (if any) to a roleplayer with which it has a one-to-one mapping.

A binary relation type cannot be losslessly de-reified if it implements interface types and does not have one-to-one mapping to any of its role players. Similarly, a hierarchy of binary relation types cannot be losslessly de-reified.