Specification of an active database system application using dynamic relation nets

Abstract

This paper describes a new kind of specification of an active database system application based on the Dynamic Relation Nets, which are themselves derived from high-level Petri nets. We introduce the capability of a Dynamic Relation Net to describe both static and dynamic aspects of a system, and show how such a formalism may be used to specify ECA-rules. This model uses the graphical advantages of Petri nets as a visual interface with the user and inherits the precision of formal languages based on the set theory by describing unambiguously management rules of information systems. The derived tool, namely NetSpec, provides the designer with the ability to focus on the design rather than the implementation, since there is no imperative code to produce while in the design phase of an application.