Associative model of data


The associative model of data is a data model for database systems. Other data models, such as the relational model and the object data model, are record-based. These models involve encompassing attributes about a thing, such as a car, in a record structure. Such attributes might be registration, colour, make, model, etc. In the associative model, everything which has “discrete independent existence” is modeled as an entity, and relationships between them are modeled as associations. The granularity at which data is represented is similar to schemes presented by Chen ; Bracchi, Paolini and Pelagatti ; and Senko.
A number of claims made about the model by Simon Williams, in his book The Associative Model of Data, distinguish the associative model from more traditional models.

Discussion

In an associative database management system, data and metadata are stored as two types of things:
Here's how the associative model would use these two structures to store the piece of information Flight BA1234 arrived at London Heathrow on 12-Dec-05 at 10:25 am. There are seven items: the four nouns Flight BA1234, London Heathrow, 12-Dec-05 and 10:25 am, and the three verbs arrived at, on and at. Three links are needed to store the data. They are:
The first link has Flight BA1234 as its source, arrived at as its verb and London Heathrow as its target.
The second link has the first link as its source, on as its verb and the item 12-Dec-05 as its target.
The third link has the second link as its source, at as its verb and 10:25 am as its target.
Here is an alternative way to write the same thing using parentheses:
An associative database may be regarded as comprising two tables: one for items and one for links. Each item and each link has an arbitrary number as an identifier: