A system and method is disclosed for integrating and accessing multiple
data sources within a data warehouse architecture. The metadata formed by
the present method provide a way to declaratively present domain specific
knowledge, obtained by analyzing data sources, in a consistent and
useable way. Four types of information are represented by the metadata:
abstract concepts, databases, transformations and mappings. A mediator
generator automatically generates data management computer code based on
the metadata. The resulting code defines a translation library and a
mediator class. The translation library provides a data representation
for domain specific knowledge represented in a data warehouse, including
"get" and "set" methods for attributes that call transformation methods
and derive a value of an attribute if it is missing. The mediator class
defines methods that take "distinguished" high-level objects as input and
traverse their data structures and enter information into the data
warehouse.