Transforming Entity-Relationship Diagrams to Relational Schemas Using a Graph Grammar Formalism

As a formal tool extended from string grammars, graph grammars provide an intuitive yet formal way to define and transform various visual languages. This paper proposes an approach to transform Entity-Relationship diagrams (E-R diagrams) to relational schemas using a graph grammar formalism. We briefly introduce the edge-based graph grammar, on which a set of productions is designed for specifying the syntax of E-R diagrams. The set of productions can be used to verify the validity of any given E-R diagram. In addition, a procedure of transforming a given E-R diagram to a relational schema is added into the parsing process. Via the graph grammar, the automatic transformation is rigorous yet concise. We finally provide an example E-R diagram for a business management system and its transformation into relational schemas to demonstrate the specification, transformation and analyzing the power of our approach.