Topics

1

General Board / [HELP] - Run-time association-class?

« on: February 15, 2011, 08:26:27 pm »

"An Association Class connector is a UML construct that enables an Associate connector to have attributes and operations (features). "

So in the object model that is a run-time instantiation of such a model, on the Associate connector between two objects classified appropriately either (a) it should support the assignment of attributes and operations or (b) it should allow an object classified by the association class to be connected.

I can't find a way to do this in the EA interface. Any suggestions?  :-?

2

General Board / Association-end navigability in XMI export

« on: November 24, 2008, 04:41:52 pm »

We are generating XML Schemas from UML which depend critically on the "navigability" status of association ends.
We have a test model that shows all combinations of end navigability status - see https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/twiki/bin/view/AppSchemas/FullMoonTestModels#Test_25.
However, looking in the XMI exported for this model https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/subversion/FullMoon/trunk/resources/xmi-samples/TestAS25.xml, we find

(a) every UML:AssociationEnd/@isNavigable="true" regardless of status

(b) the correct navigability is hidden as a substring in the @value attribute of UML:TaggedValue[@tag="sourcestyle"] or  UML:TaggedValue[@tag="deststyle"]

Obviously the latter is harder to use, but the former appears to be redundant/pointless.
Comments anyone?

3

General Board / Can I show connector tagged-values on a diagram?

« on: November 24, 2008, 12:45:16 pm »

By judicious use of linked diagram notes, and application of diagram settings it is possible to get most model information to show automatically on a diagram. But I am stumped on this one:

we use tagged values on association-ends and on attributes, but I can't find how to get them displayed on a diagram. Any suggestions?

4

General Board / Exported model includes dependants, but shouldn't?

« on: November 21, 2008, 12:32:00 pm »

When I run "Export package to XMI file", the exported document also includes UML: Dependency, UML: Generalization and UML: Association links that involve dependant packages and classes that are in my model cache (.eap file) but are _not_ in the package being exported. These associations are owned by the dependant, not the elements in package being exported, so surely they should not be exported as part of the XMI representation of the package of interest?

This causes us trouble because we are processing the XMI representation, and we run conformance tests on the EAStub elements to check that dependencies are known to the processor. We don't care about dependants, so if they are also present in the EAStub list our conformance checking gets much harder.  

5

General Board / Tagged values on diagrams

« on: October 17, 2008, 02:26:07 pm »

To support a documentation generator application, we'd like to be able to tag diagrams so the right ones are selected for the right documentation page. EA does not appear to provide an interface to set/change diagram tagged values - is this correct?

6

General Board / Attribute type identified by name, not EAID?

« on: May 15, 2008, 05:54:20 pm »

We are using EA's DDL transform to generate table schemas from a class model. In the model we use a mixture of class attributes and associations. Some attributes have complex types corresponding to other classes in the model. When the table schema is generated, these appear as table columns, where we expected to see links.

Inspection of the XMI representation of the model shows that an attribute type is given by its name, with no EAID link to the class. This is surprising. Are class attributes really not meant to link to the class definition of their type?

(We had also come across these previously in XMI processing.)

7

General Board / How to "unlock" a connector

« on: October 15, 2007, 08:06:47 pm »

I have a model in which I need to modify the properties of a connector (specifically: add a tagged value to one end).
The required buttons in the Tags pane are not active.
Investigating further, I cannot even delete the connector - the error message says it is "locked against modification".
So this seems to the be the underlying problem.

So now I'm trying to find out how to "unlock" a connector.
I can't find this in the interface or documentation.
Any advice?

8

Bugs and Issues / isNavigable & Navigable tagged value inconsistent

« on: November 26, 2008, 05:46:54 pm »

In the Association dialogue in EA it is possible to set the navigability of an association in more than one way:
1. using the "Direction" value on the General tab
2. using the "Navigability" property on the Source Role and Target Role tab.

For most combos set the latter way, this causes the value of the "isNavigable" property of the association-end to be set correctly in the exported XMI document (i.e. in the UML:AssociationEnd/@isNavigable attribute).
 
However, for certain combinations, the value of UML:AssociationEnd/@isNavigable is clearly wrong.

Here's a test model:  
https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/twiki/bin/view/AppSchemas/FullMoonTestModels#Test_25 and the XMI
https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/subversion/FullMoon/trunk/resources/xmi-samples/TestAS25.xml

The association between Sample and FT5 is unspecified/non-navigable, but in the XMI both ends are isNavigable="true". Similar problem with FT7.

Worse still with FT8 where the ends are explicitly non-navigable, but both are labelled isNavigable="true"!

(Note that the correct value can be detected by parsing the sourcestyle or deststyle tag, but this is an EA extension, not standard XMI.)

Looks like a pretty serious bug?

9

Bugs and Issues / Not receiving any notifications

« on: November 25, 2008, 11:27:19 am »

I've selected  "Notify of replies" on a few postings in the last week, but am not receiving any. I've checked my spam cache and its not there either ...

10

Bugs and Issues / "Synch Tagged Values" creates duplicates

« on: August 28, 2008, 05:43:29 pm »

I've updated a UML profile in an MDG, adding two new tagged values to a stereotype. When I run "Synch Tagged Values and Constraints" from the resources window, it creates duplicate tagged values on all elements with this stereotype - the ones that already existed, some of which contained values, plus a new complete set of empty tagged values.

This is highly undersirable - I only wanted to synch the model with the profile to get the new tags, not empty duplicates ...

11

Bugs and Issues / Difficulties creating a UML profile

« on: February 12, 2008, 01:30:30 am »

I've followed the instructions in the Help pages starting at "Create a Profile Package".
Two problems:

1. the procedure to add a predefined tag type does not appear to work at all
2. inconsistent/broken behaviour when saving and loading
(i) I saved the profile out as a "UML profile" using right-click/Save Package as UML Profile in the Project Browser; when I loaded this profile in the Resources panel, only a subset of the stereotypes were loaded. I checked the XML file, and they all appear to be there
(ii) I saved using right-click/Save as Profile on the diagram; when I loaded in the resources panel the stereotype ordering was jumbled

I can provide the XMI and both XML Profiles for debugging.

12

Bugs and Issues / Length of tagged values

« on: February 11, 2008, 09:04:29 pm »

 
We want to include some (XML) implementation-specific information in a UML model (Schematron fragments) that is used by an external encoder.
The usual place to add implementation platform specific detail is in Tagged Values.
However, the length of the tagged value field appears to be limited to ~256 chars.

Is this a UML limitation, or just the EA implementation?
Can it be increased?

If not, then we will have to reconsider where to store potentially long Schematron elements.
Any suggestions? - N.B. must be consistent with UML spec, and not EA specific or a kludge.

Simon

13

Uml Process / How to set class visibility?

« on: November 25, 2005, 02:46:02 am »

When exporting models to XMI, all packages and classes appear to get

<Foundation.Core.ModelElement.visibility xmi.value="private"/>

by default. How can I change these to public, on a
  * per element and
  * default
basis?
Can't find anything in the help pages or on the website.

Simon