Association Nodes: Adding and editing associations and their properties

Corticon Studio: Quick Reference Guide : Vocabularies : Populating a new Vocabulary : Adding nodes to the Vocabulary tree view : Association Nodes: Adding and editing associations and their properties

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Association Nodes: Adding and editing associations and their properties

To add a new Association node:

1. Select an Entity in the Vocabulary tree view.

2. Perform one of the following:

Right-click to display the pop-up menu and choose Add Association.

Choose Vocabulary > Add Association from the menubar.

Choose

from the toolbar.

3. Complete the Association window as shown in the following table:

Note: This dialog shows the settings displayed when the Vocabulary is showing its details.

Property	Value
Source Entity Name	An association relates two entities. Corticon Studio refers to one entity as the source and the other as the target. Choose the name of the supplier from the drop-down list, which includes the entity names already defined in this Vocabulary.
Target Entity Name	Choose the name of the second entity – the target entity – from the drop down list.
Cardinality Radio Buttons	Select the combination of radio buttons that describe the relationship you want between the two entities. The possible combinations are:
	One-To-Many. This is the default and is shown as 1>* in the properties. This means that a given instance of the supplier entity may be related to multiple instances of the target entity. Displays as:
	One-To-One. Shown as 1>1, it means that a given instance of the supplier entity may be related to a single instance of the target entity. Displays as:
	Many-To-One. Shown as *>1, it means that multiple instances of the supplier entity may be related to a single instance of the target entity. Displays as:
	Many-To-Many. Shown as >, it means that multiple instances of the supplier entity may be related to multiple instances of the target entity. Displays as:
	Mandatory. Also known as optionality. Select this box if at least one instance of the source or target MUST be present in data sent to the Corticon Server to be processed by rules using this Vocabulary.
Role Names	Role names are useful when two entities share more than one association. Custom role names can give each association a unique, descriptive name. Source-To-Target provides a name for the association from the perspective of the source entity. Target-To-Source provides a name for the association from the perspective of the target entity.
Navigability	Bidirectional. Select Bidirectional if you want the association to be traversable (visible) in both directions within the Vocabulary. This means that associations between two entities are visible from each entity in the Vocabulary tree view. This option provides the most flexibility when writing rules. Source Entity < Target Entity. Use this option to prevent the association from the Target entity to the Source entity from being displayed in the Vocabulary tree view. This option prevents a rule from being written using the scope Target_entity.source_entity.attribute. Source Entity < Target Entity. Use this option to prevent the association from the Source entity to the Target entity from being displayed in the Vocabulary tree view. This prevents a rule from being written using the scope Source_entity.target_entity.attribute. See the Rule Modeling Guide for more information on using associations in rule modeling.

When the Vocabulary is showing its details, additional Association properties are available, as highlighted:

These properties and their usage are discussed in the Server Integration & Deployment Guide's chapter "Preparing Studio files for deployment".

Table 19. XML Mapping and Java Object Mapping Association Properties
Property	Value
XML Property Name	Specifies the XML Element Name when there is no exact match to the Vocabulary association name.
Java Object Get Method	Manually specifies the GET method of a class property that does not conform to naming conventions of the auto-mapper.
Java Object Set Method	Manually specifies the SET method of a class property that does not conform to naming conventions of the auto-mapper.
Java Object Field Name	Manually specifies a public instance variable name.

When set to Integration & Deployment mode, additional Association database properties are available.

Table 20. Enterprise Data Connector (EDC) Attribute Properties
Property	Description	Applicability
Join Expression	Expression that defines the relationships between foreign key columns in the database	Required for all database-mapped associations. Inferred in most instances from database metadata (exceptions: unary associations and certain many-to-many associations).