Introduction

VO-DML is defined formally in an IVOA Standard, but that standard concentrates on the formal definition of the metamodel, whereas this guide is intended to offer practical assistance to those who want to use VO-DML to create their own data models, and then create code that can serialize those models to various formats.

Linus Torvalds

Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

The purpose of writing data models is two-fold

• It defines concepts for a particular domain in an abstract way that provides a common discourse about meanings within that domain.
• It provides a machine-readable representation that can be transformed in various ways that allow instances of the model to be transported, stored and queried.

Start Modelling and learn about model design and why VODML

Features of the VO-DML tools

The this project defined the VO-DML tools for working with VO-DML data models - the features of these tools include

• easy to install - create a dependency on this project rather than checking it out see template
• model validation
• model documentation
• auto-generation of XML, JSON and TAP Schema
• auto-generation of Java and Python code that serializes according to these schema.