Relationship Structure: Origin and Destination
In every relationship, one object participates as the origin and one object participates as the destination. The terms origin and destination refer to the relative roles of the two objects. Together, they define the primary direction of the relationship. For any given relationship, the assignment of one particular role as the origin and the other role as the destination is arbitrary to the repository engine. In practice, however, the developer typically assigns the origin role to the object that acts or operates on the other object.
For example, in a relationship of the type schema has tables, Schema is the origin and Tables is the destination. In the relationship table has columns, Tables is origin and Columns is the destination. Notice that Tables can be both destination and origin, depending on its role in each relationship.
Origin and destination assignments create the structure of an information model. Within a single origin-destination pairing, the origin and destination assignments of the two objects are fixed after the assignments are made.
See Also
Relationship Navigation: Source and Target