Schema implementation

There are different ways implementing an application database schema.

• ODABA tool chain - In order to define the database schema, ODABA provides the tools Terminus and ClassEditor. Terminus allows a conceptual specification by defining a terminology model. This can be transferred later to an object model, which may be refined in the ClassEditor.
• ODL - The object definition language is a script language that allows defining the database schema. The ODABA ODL implementation includes a large number of extensions. After defining the schema, it should be loaded to the resource database, even though one could use the script directly.
• XML - XML schema definition has been provided as an example to demonstrate, how a schema implementation could look like in XML. The XML schema definition for a project can be generated from within ClassEditor.
• Program - writing a program (OSI, C++, C#) for adding schema definitions directly to the resource database.

Because of complexity it is suggested to use the ODABA tool chain. ClassEditor and ODL provide check functions for checking the object model. The ODABA scema definition offers two schema extensions in order to manage the complexity of data type definitions: A check model can be defined by means of the property ckeck model attribute (SDB_Member.check_level) and a copy model can be defined by means of the copy model attribute (SDB_Member.copy_level.