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ConceptBase.cc User Manual
Version 8.2 ¹

Abstract. ConceptBase.cc (in short ConceptBase) is a multi-user deductive object manager intended for conceptual modeling, metamodeling, and coordination in design environments. The system implements O-Telos, a dialect of Telos integrating deductive and object-oriented paradigms. It uniformly represents all information regardless of its abstraction level (data, class, meta class, meta meta class etc.) in a single data structure called P-facts. The deductive query language is seamlessly integrated into the meta class hierarchy. Modeling is supported by meta classing, deduction and integrity checking, active rule specification, functional definition of computation, a module concept, and a rollback mechanism for querying past database states. These principles are combined orthogonally, e.g. deductive rules can be restricted to modules, formulated for meta classes, employed in active rules using functional definitions to compute properties, and be revised without overwriting the earlier definitions. The Java-based user interface CBIva offers a palette of graphical interfaces, such as an Telos editor and a graph editor. The communication between the user clients and the object base is organized in a client-server architecture using TCP/IP. The Java-based command line interface CBShell allows for easy scripting of commands directed to a ConceptBase server. The CBShell source code can also be used as a programming interface to ConceptBase.

Contributions to this manual were made by: Manfred Jeusfeld, Martin Staudt, Hans Nissen, Christoph Quix, Lutz Bauer, Rainer Gallersdörfer, Michael Gebhardt, Matthias Jarke, Thomas List, René Soiron.

Contributions to the source code of ConceptBase were made by: Masoud Asady, Lutz Bauer (module system), Markus Baumeister, Ulrich Bonn, Stefan Eherer, Rainer Gallersdörfer (object store), Michael Gebhardt, Dagmar Genenger, Michael Gocek, Rainer Hermanns, Manfred Jeusfeld (CB server, logic foundation, function component), David Kensche, André Klemann, Eva Krüger (integrity component), Rainer Langohr, Farshad Lashgari, Tobias Latzke, Xiang Li, Yong Li, Thomas List (object store), Andreas Miethsam, Hans Nissen (module system), Martin Pöschmann, Christoph Quix (CB server, view component), Christoph Radig (object base interface), Achim Schlosser, Tobias Schöneberg, René Soiron (optimizer), Martin Staudt (CB server, query component), Kai von Thadden (query component), Hua Wang (answer formatting), Claudia Welter, Thomas Wenig, and others. If you ever contributed to the ConceptBase source code and you are not listed here, then give us a note!

• Contents
• Introduction
  • Background: Telos and O-Telos
  • The architecture of ConceptBase.cc
  • Hardware and software requirements
  • Overview of this manual
  • Differences to earlier versions
  • License terms
  • Disclaimer
• O-Telos by ConceptBase.cc
  • Propositions and frames
  • Rules and constraints
  • Query classes
  • View definitions
  • Functions
  • Query evaluation strategies
  • Multi-level modeling with ConceptBase
  • Datalog queries and rules
• Answer Formats for Queries
  • Basic definitions
  • Constructs in answer formats
  • Parameterized answer formats
  • File type of answer formats
  • Bulk query calls
• Active Rules
  • Definition of ECArules
  • Examples
  • Optimization of ECA rules
  • Limitations of the current implementation
• The Module System
  • Definition of modules
  • Switching between module contexts
  • Using nested modules
  • Exporting and importing objects
  • Modules and metamodeling
  • Setting user home modules
  • Limiting access to modules
  • Listing the module content
  • Purging a module
  • Saving and loading module sources
  • Server-side materialization of query results
• The ConceptBase.cc Server
  • CBserver parameters
  • ConceptBase under Windows 10
  • Database format
  • Modifying the system database
  • Tracing and restarting
  • Public CBservers
  • The tabling subsystem
  • Database persistency
  • The UNTELL operation
  • Memory consumption and performance
  • The Java API to the CBserver
• The CBShell Utility
  • Syntax
  • Options
  • Commands
  • Interactive use of CBShell
  • Positional parameters
  • Executable CBShell scripts
  • CBShell scripts within regular shell scripts
  • CBShell in a pipe
• The ConceptBase.cc Usage Environment
  • The workbench CBIva
  • The graph editor CBGraph
  • An example session with ConceptBase
  • Configuration file
• Syntax Specifications
  • Syntax specifications for Telos frames
  • Syntax of the rule and constraint language
  • Syntax of active rules
  • Terminal symbols
  • Syntax specifications for SML fragments
• O-Telos Axioms
• Graphical Types
  • The graphical type model
  • The standard graphical types
  • Customizing the graphical types
  • TelosPalette: A modern graphical palette for ConceptBase
  • Object-specific graphical properties
  • Graphical types for derived links
  • Palette-specific methods to expand related objects
• Examples
  • Example model: the employee model
  • A Telos modeling example - ER diagrams
• Predefined Query Classes
  • Query classes and generic query classes
  • Functions
  • Builtin query classes
• CBserver Plug-Ins
  • Defining the plug-in
  • Calling the plug-in
  • Programming interface for the plug-ins
• References

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Copyright 1987-2024 by The ConceptBase Team. All rights reserved. See link for details. This report is published by The ConceptBase Team via http://conceptbase.cc. You can use this report for private and academic purposes. Use in a commercial context is only permitted for user’s self-study of ConceptBase.cc. If you publish research results or sell products or services based on ConceptBase.cc, then include a reference to this user manual. Unless you are member of the ConceptBase Team, you may not alter this report and you may not republish it, neither electronically nor as hardcopies. Rather point to the original location of this report at link. A version of the user manual is included in the ConceptBase.cc installation directory in sub-directory doc/UserManual. This report is published under a Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (link).

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by H^EV^EA.