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4 Glossary

Binding
(of types)
Specifies a legal way in which object instances can be connected via a relationship and roles, in a graph of this type. Consists of a relationship type with a collection of role types, each of which has a cardinality and a set of object types.
Cardinality
The number of types a given role type in a binding may occur (effectively, be duplicated) in instances based on that binding. Consists of a minimum value (>=0) and a maximum value (>0; may also be N for no upper limit).
Constraint
A rule setting an upper limit on the number of times a given instance of an object type may participate in relationships or roles of a given type, within a graph of this type. Consists of an Object type, a maximum value, and a Role or Relationship type.
Decomposition
(type definition)
A link from an object type to one or more graph types. An instance of the object type may define at most one graph of one of the types as its decomposition.
Default project
Project in which new graphs and types will be stored. New graph representations and design elements are automatically stored into the same project as their graphs.
Explosion
(type definition)
A link from an object, relationship or role type in this graph type, to one or more graph types. A given object, relationship or role instance can have several explosions in a given graph, and a different set of explosions in another graph (even of the same type).
Metamodel
Specifications of a method, also model of a method
Metatype
GOPRR concepts used for metamodelling, i.e. graph, object, relationship, role, property.
Object type
An object describes a thing that can exist on its own. Object type names are typically nouns. Examples include Process, Class, and Attribute.
Project
A group of models and/or metamodels that are used together. Corresponds to an area in the repository. In the standard repository each method has its own project (written with capital letters) and users can create their own projects for storing models.
Property type
Properties describe characteristics of instances of other types. Property type names are generally nouns or adverbs. Examples include Class name, Cardinality, and Attributes. Each property type has a basic data type, e.g. string, text, Object or collection of Graphs.
Relationship type
A relationship can exist between objects. It connects objects through roles. Semantically, relationships are usually verbs, but relationship type names are sometimes also nouns or adverbs. Examples include Inheritance, Call, and Usage.
Role type
A role specifies how an object participates in a relationship. Semantically, roles are adverbs. Role type names are often prepositional phrases or verbs. Examples include subclass, from, and receives.


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