EXPRESS (data Modeling Language) - Simple Example

Simple Example

A simple EXPRESS data model looks like fig 2, and the code like this:

SCHEMA Family; ENTITY Person ABSTRACT SUPERTYPE OF (ONEOF (Male, Female)); name: STRING; mother: OPTIONAL Female; father: OPTIONAL Male; END_ENTITY; ENTITY Female SUBTYPE OF (Person); END_ENTITY; ENTITY Male SUBTYPE of (Person); END_ENTITY; END_SCHEMA;

The data model is enclosed within the EXPRESS schema Family. It contains a supertype entity Person with the two subtypes Male and Female. Since Person is declared to be ABSTRACT only occurrences of either (ONEOF) the subtype Male or Female can exist. Every occurrence of a person has a mandatory name attribute and optionally attributes mother and father. There is a fixed style of reading for attributes of some entity type:

• a Female can play the role of mother for a Person
• a Male can play the role of father for a Person