software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

, a domain model is a conceptual model of the

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...

that incorporates both behavior and data.Fowler, Martin. ''Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture''. Addison Wesley, 2003, p. 116. In

ontology engineering In computer science, information science and systems engineering, ontology engineering is a field which studies the methods and methodologies for building ontologies, which encompasses a representation, formal naming and definition of the categori ...

, a domain model is a formal representation of a

knowledge domain Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...

with concepts, roles, datatypes, individuals, and rules, typically grounded in a description logic.

Overview

A domain model is a system of abstractions that describes selected aspects of a sphere of knowledge, influence or activity (a domainEvans, Eric ''Domain-Driven Design: Definitions and Pattern Summaries''. Domain Language Inc., 2006, p. 3.). The model can then be used to solve problems related to that domain. The domain model is a representation of meaningful real-world concepts pertinent to the domain that need to be modeled in software. The concepts include the data involved in the business and rules the business uses in relation to that data. A domain model leverages natural language of the domain. A domain model generally uses the vocabulary of the domain, thus allowing a representation of the model to be communicated to non-technical stakeholders. It should not refer to any technical implementations such as databases or software components that are being designed.

Usage

A domain model is generally implemented as an

object model In computing, object model has two related but distinct meanings: # The properties of objects in general in a specific computer programming language, technology, notation or methodology that uses them. Examples are the object models of ''Java'', ...

within a layer that uses a lower-level layer for persistence and "publishes" an API to a higher-level layer to gain access to the data and behavior of the model. In the

Unified Modeling Language The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose, developmental modeling language in the field of software engineering that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system. The creation of UML was originally m ...

(UML), a

class diagram In software engineering, a class diagram in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a type of static structure diagram that describes the structure of a system by showing the system's classes, their attributes, operations (or methods), and the rela ...

is used to represent the domain model.

Notes

References

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Overview

Usage

See also

Notes

References