Read First: Object, Object Type, Tuple, Relation
Read Next: supportedBy/supportState, ofObject/inState, State Type

When an object is in a certain state, it must be related to other
objects in certain ways.  For example, if Joe is married, or in the
state Married, we are saying that he is in the Marriage relation with
another person.  More specifically, Joe is a participant in one of the
tuples of the Marriage relation.

Being in a certain state is not necessarily completely specific.  For
example, that Joe is married does not say to whom.  However, for a
particular object in a state, the object will need to participate in
tuples that make it in that state.  So in OOIE, a state is modelled as a
kind of object that links another object to the tuples
(supportedBy/supportState, and ofObject/inState).  For example, the
state of Marriage for Joe might link Joe to the tuple (Joe, Mary), an
instance of Marriage.

Being in a certain state is not exclusive of being in other states.  For
example, Mary can be employed and married at the same time.  So states
in OOIE are partial records of the tuples that an object participates
in.  If an object has enough states, then all the tuples in which it
participates are specified.  This state, called the complete state, is
rarely modelled, so has no special designation in OOIE.  However, state
modelled in OOIE can be either a partial or complete state.

Since everything is an object in OOIE, a state can refer to any
information about an object.  In particular, the instances of
meta-relations applying to an object are part of its state.  For
example, it is part of Mary's state that she is an instance of Employee.
The only information that perhaps is not a relation of an object is the
fact that it exists, but it is also considered possible state
information in OOIE.



Miscellaneous

We cannot model a state as a kind of object type, with tuples as its
objects, because the tuples are not states.


Read First: Object, Object Type, Tuple, Relation
Read Next: supportedBy/supportState, ofObject/inState, State Type

Supertypes: Object

Subtypes: None