Data Source Connector Concepts

In its simplest form, the Data Source Connector is designed to map data against a rulebase. To do this it utilizes two concepts: 

Attribute Mappings

Attribute Mappings are two sided mappings, with a Table/Column on one side and an Entity/Attribute on the other. The mappings also store details of the data type and whether the attribute is an output attribute. If the attribute is an output (or goal) attribute the mappings also define what ordinality the attribute should take in the output CSV file.

Relationship Mappings

As well as entities and attributes, a rulebase data model may also contain relationships between entities. In a database data source these will be represented as Primary/Foreign Key pairs between tables. Relationship mappings allow you to define the links between these Primary/Foreign Key pairs, and the corresponding entity relationship within the rulebase. The connector supports the use of multiple columns as keys, and the full set of 1:1, 1:M (M:1) and M:M relationship types.

 

Using these two concepts above, we can easily represent a full set of data mappings from data source to rulebase target. With the option to mark specific attributes as outputs, we also gain the ability to specify which data to extract from our rulebase.