Query-Based Reverse Engineering of Graph Databases – From Program to Model

Abstract

Graph databases have been developed to meet data persistence requirements, notably from social networks. They are, like the other NoSQL databases, often schemaless. This paper describes an incremental approach deriving a conceptual model from a graph database by analyzing a Cypher flow of queries. This reverse engineering approach embeds three main contributions: (1) a set of transformation rules of Cypher queries into chunks of conceptual schemas, (2) an incremental approach based on these rules, (3) an illustration on an example. This contribution enables, from a Cypher code, to generate a conceptual model that will facilitate the evolution of the existing graph database. This research is part of a project aiming at building an environment enabling round-trip engineering of relational and NoSQL databases.