Operations on tables

A table can be constructed from a class or from a table definition comprising a set of attribute type pairs.

Table operations are best defined in C.J. Date’s writing on relational theory. The two key books to read are An Introduction to Database Systems (latest edition is eighth as of this writing) and Relational Theory for Computer Professionals. Here we’ll assume that you’ve read these or are somewhat familiar with the operations with only a very light treatment and a few simple examples.

Much of what you want to accomplish can be performed with instance sets, so you rarely need to explicitly construct tables. If you are not a relational algebra wizard, don’t worry. But Executable UML is rooted in relational theory and power modelers can sometimes specify complex computational activities more easily with table operations, as opposed to resorting to needlessly platform specific data structures.