Building hypertext interfaces to existing relational databases

This paper presents a methodology for constructing hypertext views over existing relational databases. First, the database semantics are extracted in the form of an EER schema, using database reverse engineering techniques. Then, the EER schema is used for the definition of the node and link types of hypertext views. This two-stage approach has the benefit that the hypertext designer considers only a conceptual model of the database. Moreover, the instances of node and link types are dynamically computed; no data replication takes place. An experimental set of tools that support the methodology has been developed and used in a realistic case study.