NAVIGATION ALONG DATABASE RELATIONSHIPS - An Adaptive Framework for Presenting Database Contents as Object Graphs

Ahmet Atli, Katja Nau, Andreas Schmidt

2011

Abstract

In this paper, we will present an approach to visualizing arbitrary relational database contents in the form of object graphs via the World Wide Web. The focus is on the relationships between the datasets rather than on the data itself. The tool allows definition of different node types representing the datasets and edges representing the foreign keys and relationship tables in the database schema. Each node type has a label, and optionally a short description and a user definable image associated with it. The information for these fields can be extracted 1 : 1 from the corresponding database tables or otherwise be aggregated from different tables. Along the edges, it is possible to navigate through the content of the database. At any time, exactly one node represents the center of the object graph. Starting from this graph, edges and other nodes down to a user-definable depth n are visualized. The depth n may vary along different node and edge types, so that it is possible to customize the representation of the object graph. The graphical representation of arbitrary database contents has been of great help to us. In addition to using it in the initial application area, we intend to use it in some other areas we had left unconsidered. From these, we can infer a number of suggestions as to how to improve our tool and make it more universal.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Atli A., Nau K. and Schmidt A. (2011). NAVIGATION ALONG DATABASE RELATIONSHIPS - An Adaptive Framework for Presenting Database Contents as Object Graphs . In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST, ISBN 978-989-8425-51-5, pages 372-379. DOI: 10.5220/0003402703720379

in Bibtex Style

@conference{webist11,
author={Ahmet Atli and Katja Nau and Andreas Schmidt},
title={NAVIGATION ALONG DATABASE RELATIONSHIPS - An Adaptive Framework for Presenting Database Contents as Object Graphs},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST,},
year={2011},
pages={372-379},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0003402703720379},
isbn={978-989-8425-51-5},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST,
TI - NAVIGATION ALONG DATABASE RELATIONSHIPS - An Adaptive Framework for Presenting Database Contents as Object Graphs
SN - 978-989-8425-51-5
AU - Atli A.
AU - Nau K.
AU - Schmidt A.
PY - 2011
SP - 372
EP - 379
DO - 10.5220/0003402703720379