Oreste Signore

Reconstruction of ER Schema from Database Applications: a Cognitive Approach

In the Forward Engineering phase, the designer modifies the database conceptual schema and produces a logical and physical schema containing some “spurious” relations dictated by design tricks and DBMSs limitations. Therefore the rebuilding of the database conceptual schema from the physical database structure is a fundamental issue in the re-engineering and design recovery processes. Some proposed methodologies try to get the necessary information from the schema and from the content of the database, paying little attention to the analysis of the usage that the programs make of the data, while this can be thought as the most reliable source of information. In this paper we present an approach to the reverse engineering based on the identification of schema, primary key, SQL and procedural indicators that lead to the assertion of Prolog facts and, by some heuristic rules, to the rebuilding of the conceptual schema.

Using procedural patterns in abstracting relational schemata

The rebuilding of the database conceptual schema from the physical database structure is a fundamental issue in the re-engineering and design recovery processes. In this paper we present an approach to the reverse engineering based on the identification of schema, primary key, SQL and procedural indicators that lead to the assertion of Prolog facts and, by some heuristic rules, to the rebuilding of the conceptual schema.<<ETX>>

Understanding legacy systems with OSK

The tool named OSK (Operational System Knowledge), is the result of cooperation between Sintesi and Software Engineering and Applications Laboratory of CNUCE Institute of C.N.R. In fact, OSK is derived from the basic ideas implemented in a SEAL prototype named TROOP developed in the framework of C.N.R. Progetto Finalizzato. OSK can be used in a variety of scenarios involving the maintenance of operational systems like: impact analysis; re-documentation, restructuring and re-engineering; migration to ERP; source code quality evaluation; support for data-warehousing activity (data extraction, metadata identification, etc.); code generation. OSK comprises a set of modules built around a software repository, holding the knowledge of the analyzed systems.