Relationship Navigation: Source and Target

Meta Data Services Programming

Meta Data Services Programming

Relationship Navigation: Source and Target

You use relationships to navigate through repository contents. From within a relationship, you can retrieve either of the two repository objects that form the relationship.

In a relationship, navigation always moves from a source object towards a target object. Unlike origin and destination, source and target assignments are dynamic; the assignments vary depending on where you want to go. Because you can navigate back and forth across a network of objects, the source object is simply where navigation starts, and the target is where navigation concludes.

Source and target assignments apply to instantiated objects for the duration of a navigation step. Where origin and destination tend to reflect an enduring, real-world relationship that is represented in a model, source and target assignments exist only to provide navigation direction from one object to the next.

See Also

Navigation Overview

Relationship Structure: Origin and Destination

Repository Object Architecture

Repository Relationship Objects