Clip: a Visual Language for Explicit Schema Mappings

Many data integration solutions in the market today include tools for schema mapping, to help users visually relate elements of different schemas. Schema elements are connected with lines, which are interpreted as mappings, i.e. high-level logical expressions capturing the relationship between source and target data-sets; these are compiled into queries and programs that convert source-side data instances into target-side instances. This paper describes Clip, an XML schema mapping tool distinguished from existing tools in that mappings explicitly specify structural transformations in addition to value couplings. Since clip maps hierarchical XML schemas, lines appear naturally nested. We describe the transformation semantics associated with our "lines" and how they combine to form mappings that are more expressive than those generated by Clio, a well-known mapping tool. Further, we extend Clio's mapping generation algorithms to generate Clip's mappings.