Meta Data Services Programming
Designing Information Models
When you design a software tool, you must articulate the kinds of data that the tool will manipulate. You can store the definitions of these kinds of data, called types, in the repository by creating an information model. Each information model is, in effect, an object model represented in the repository as data.
This section uses the example of a bookseller's database to introduce information models and it describes how the repository engine can represent them as data. You can use this example as a way to understand how to design an information model.
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Understanding Application Data | Describes how to formulate application structures based on application data |
| Visualizing Data and Meta Data | Describes techniques you can use to understand application structures |
| Depicting Relationships Between Objects | Describes how to identify relationships |
| How Relationships Conform to Relationship Types | Describes how relationships conform to relationship types |
| Understanding Collections | Discusses collection types and how they relate |
| Understanding Relationship Roles | Discusses the distinctions in relationship roles and how those distinctions determine relationship collections |