Contribution to a theory of database reverse engineering

Both a general framework and specific techniques for file and database reverse engineering (recovering its conceptual schema) are proposed. The framework relies on a process/product model that matches formal as well as empirical design procedures. Based on the analysis of database design processes, two major phases are defined, i.e., data structure extraction and data structure conceptualization. For each of them, a set of activities is proposed. Most of these activities can be described as transformation and integration of specifications