Creating Types and Ontology References

Since we will use ontological matching, the required data types should have references to an ontology. In order to do that, we need to create ontological data types in the steps described in the following. Please, be aware that the ontologies you use have to be in the same project.

  1. After the Signatures and the Operations are created (Creating Signatures), and different parameters are assigned to them (Creating Signature Parameters), now you can define the ontological type of the parameters by clicking on the button as it is shown in the figure below.
  2. Click on the button "Import OWL..." to load the ontology. Ontologies can be created by using tools like Protégé and are stored in .owl-files. There are also several example ontologies in the SSE Example Projects.

    Please, check that your ontologies are placed inside your project folder so that further information on their data types can be accessed. Every ontology must have the same ontology name as their filename with the file extension, e.g., ".../primitiveDataType.owl". You can set the ontology name in Protégé -> tab "Active Ontology" -> "Ontology IRI".

  3. Select your ontology in the pop up window to import it.
  4. Choose the desired ontologies. They should be loaded in your workspace before you start working with them. In this case, in the primitiveDataTypes.owl ontology. In this ontology you can find different data types such as integer, boolean, etc. and in the university.owl ontology, you can find data types like Room, Student, Lecturer, etc. SSE's ontology support is limited to ontology built on top of RDF. Using the filter of the selection dialog you may filter your data types so navigating through large amounts of types is easier.
  5. Choose an element from the selected ontology. In our case the element Integer is chosen from the primitiveDataTypes.owl ontology.
  6. Once you have selected a data type you may view more information about the properties, super- and subclasses of this data type by right-clicking it or pressing the information button. Make sure that your desired element is selected and press OK. (Later on, when a data type needs to be chosen which is previously added, you can skip the Import OWL-Step. In this case you just need to select the desired data type from the least and press OK)
  7. Now the desired type is assigned to the parameter.
  8. TODO: describe. You have to use primitive data types from the XSD-schema. The advantage of these types is that they can be used directly in pre-/postconditions.