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While many applications must deal with individuals and many applications must deal with groups, most applications must deal with individuals or groups. It is often the case with such applications that in many respects both individuals and groups are treated in an identical manner. It is this latter class of application that makes it extremely useful to model individuals and groups as specializations of one supertype. This concept is so commonly used throughout human language and thought that we don't even need to invent for it some bizarre and specialized terminology. This -supertype is called a "party".
A classic example use of the "party" supertype is evident +supertype is called a "party".
A classic example use of the "party" supertype is evident in a common address book. A typical person's address book might contain the address of his doctor, and his cable company. So what do we label the first field in an entry in his address book? It isn't a person, and it -isn't a company. It is a "party".
Most developers who do significant work with the OpenACS will become +isn't a company. It is a "party".
Most developers who do significant work with the OpenACS will become intimately familiar with the parties data model, and probably extend it on many occasions. For this reason the parties developer guide will begin with -an introduction to the data model.
Parties
The central table in the parties data model is the parties table itself. +an introduction to the data model.
Parties
The central table in the parties data model is the parties table itself. Every party has exactly one row in this table. Every party has an optional unique email address and an optional url. A party is an acs object, so permissions may granted and revoked on parties and auditing information is stored in the acs objects table.
-create table parties (
+create table parties (
party_id not null
constraint parties_party_id_fk references
acs_objects (object_id)
@@ -31,47 +32,47 @@
constraint parties_email_un unique,
url varchar(200)
);
-
+
There are two tables that extend the parties table. One is the persons table and one is the groups table. A row in the persons table represents the most basic form of individual that is modeled by the parties data model. A row in the groups table represents the most basic form of an aggregation of -individuals that is represented.
Persons
If a party is an individual then there will be a row in the persons table +individuals that is represented.
Persons
If a party is an individual then there will be a row in the persons table containing first_names and last_name for that individual. Note that the primary key of the persons table (person_id) references the primary key of the parties table (party_id). This guarantees that if there is a row in the persons table then there must be a corresponding row in the parties table. Also note that an individual need not be known to the system as a user. A user is in fact a further specialized form of an individual.
-create table persons (
+create table persons (
person_id not null
constraint persons_person_id_fk
references parties (party_id)
constraint persons_pk primary key,
first_names varchar(100) not null,
last_name varchar(100) not null
);
-
+
-Users
The users table is an even more specialized form of an individual. A row +
Users
The users table is an even more specialized form of an individual. A row in the users table represents an individual that has login access to the system. Note that the primary key of the users table references the primary key of the persons table. Once again this guarantees that if there is a row in the users table then there must be a row in the persons table and a row in the parties table.
One of the interesting benefits of decomposing all the information associated with a user into the four tables (acs_objects, parties, persons, -users) is that it is now possible to "nuke" a user from a live +users) is that it is now possible to "nuke" a user from a live system by removing his entry from the users table, but leaving the rest of his information present (i.e. turning him from a user into a person). This is because wherever possible the OpenACS data model references the persons or -parties table, not the users table. If this feature is +parties table, not the users table. If this feature is desired when extending the system, then the developers should be careful to only references the users table in situations where it is clear that the references is to a user and not to an individual.
-create table users (
+create table users (
user_id not null
constraint users_user_id_fk
references persons (person_id)
@@ -96,27 +97,27 @@
password_question varchar(1000),
password_answer varchar(1000)
);
-
+
-Groups
The final piece of the parties data model is the groups data model. A +
Groups
The final piece of the parties data model is the groups data model. A group is a specialization of a party that represents an aggregation of other parties. The only extra information directly associated with a group (beyond that in the parties table) is the name of the group. As you might guess there is another piece to the groups data model that records relations between parties and groups.
-create table groups (
+create table groups (
group_id not null
constraint groups_group_id_fk
references parties (party_id)
constraint groups_pk primary key,
group_name varchar(100) not null
);
-
+
-Group Relations
One surprise here is that there are actually two relations involved. One +
Group Relations
One surprise here is that there are actually two relations involved. One is the normal membership relation between parties and groups. A party may be -a "member" of a group. The other relation is a composition +a "member" of a group. The other relation is a composition relation between two groups. To fully understand why two relations are necessary, and the situations in which each is appropriate, let's consider an example. Greenpeace is an organization that can have as members @@ -127,19 +128,19 @@ itself. Now let's consider a multinational corporation. This corporation might have a U.S. division and a European division. A member of either the U.S. or European division is automatically a member of the company. In this -situation the U.S. and European divisions are "components" of +situation the U.S. and European divisions are "components" of the company, i.e., membership is transitive with respect to composition. Having a membership relation between groups and parties, and having a composition relation between groups and groups allows us to easily model the full range of sophisticated group structures that exist in the real -world.
Group Membership
Group memberships can be created and manipulated using the membership_rel +world.
Group Membership
Group memberships can be created and manipulated using the membership_rel package. Note that you can only create one membership object for a given group, party pair. Because of composition, it is possible in some circumstances to make someone a member of a group of which they are already a member. This is because there is a distinction between direct membership and indirect membership (membership via some component or sub component).
-create or replace package membership_rel
+create or replace package membership_rel
as
function new (
@@ -179,17 +180,17 @@
end membership_rel;
/
show errors
-
+
-Group Composition
Composition relations can be created or destroyed using the +
Group Composition
Composition relations can be created or destroyed using the composition_rel package. The only restriction on compositions is that there cannot be a cycle, i.e., a group cannot be a component of itself either directly or indirectly. This constraint is maintained for you by the API, but if you don't want users seeing some random PL/SQL error message, it is a good idea to not give them the option to create a composition relation that would result in a cycle.
-create or replace package composition_rel
+create or replace package composition_rel
as
function new (
@@ -208,14 +209,14 @@
end composition_rel;
/
show errors
-
+
-The data model described above does a reasonable job of representing many of the situations one is likely to encounter when modeling organizational structures, but we still need to be able to efficiently answer questions like -"what members are in this group and all of its components?", and -"of what groups is this party a member either directly or -indirectly?". Composition relations allow you to describe an arbitrary +"what members are in this group and all of its components?", and +"of what groups is this party a member either directly or +indirectly?". Composition relations allow you to describe an arbitrary Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) between a group and its components. For these reasons the party system provides a bunch of views that take advantage of the internal representation of group relations to answer questions like these @@ -230,36 +231,36 @@ container_id. The rel_id might be useful for retrieving or updating standard auditing info for the relation.
-create or replace view group_component_map
+create or replace view group_component_map
as select group_id, component_id, container_id, rel_id
...
-
+
This is similar to group_component_map except for membership relations. Note that this view will return all membership relations regardless of membership state.
-create or replace view group_member_map
+create or replace view group_member_map
as select group_id, member_id, container_id, rel_id
...
-
+
The group_approved_member_map is the same as the group_member_map except it only returns entries that relate to approved members.
-create or replace view group_approved_member_map
+create or replace view group_approved_member_map
as select group_id, member_id, container_id, rel_id
...
-
+
This view is useful if you don't care about the distinction between direct membership and indirect membership. It simply returns all members of a group including members of components. (It is the transitive closure.)
-create or replace view group_distinct_member_map
+create or replace view group_distinct_member_map
as select group_id, member_id
...
-
+
This view is the same as group_distinct_member_map, except it includes the identity mapping. In other words it maps from a party to the fully expanded @@ -269,25 +270,25 @@ view will have four rows for that party, one for each member, and one from the party to itself.
-create or replace view party_member_map
+create or replace view party_member_map
as select party_id, member_id
...
-
+
This view is the same as above except that when it expands groups, it only pays attention to approved members.
-create or replace view party_approved_member_map
+create or replace view party_approved_member_map
as select party_id, member_id
...
-
+
-As is, the parties data model can represent some fairly sophisticated real +
As is, the parties data model can represent some fairly sophisticated real world situations, and a lot of work has been put into making this efficient, but it is foolish to assume that this data model is sufficient for every application. It therefore seems likely that developers will want to extend the parties data model in a number of ways. This section will describe some -of the more common ways.
Specializing Users
It is conceivable that some applications will want to collect more +of the more common ways.
Specializing Users
It is conceivable that some applications will want to collect more detailed information for people using the system. If it is the case that there can be only one such piece of information per user, then it might make sense to create another type of individual that is a further specialization @@ -297,12 +298,12 @@ have a primary key that references the users table, thereby guaranteeing that each row in the mensa_users table has a corresponding row in each of the users, persons, parties, and acs_objects tables. This child table could then -store any extra information relevant to the MENSA community.
Specializing Groups
If one were to build an intranet application on top of the party +store any extra information relevant to the MENSA community.
Specializing Groups
If one were to build an intranet application on top of the party system, it is likely that one would want to take advantage of the systems efficient representation of sophisticated organizational structures, but there would be much more specialized information associated with each group. In this case it would make sense to specialize the group party type into a -company party type in the same manner as above.
Specializing Membership Relations
The final portion of the parties data model that is designed to be +company party type in the same manner as above.
Specializing Membership Relations
The final portion of the parties data model that is designed to be extended is the membership relationship. Consider the intranet example again. It is likely that a membership in a company would have more information associated with it than a membership in an ordinary group. An obvious example