Composite state gets lost

[RolfK2013]

Hello all,

I have a problem regarding the Composite state of EA elements.

With a group of colleagues, I'm working on the EA model of a larger software system. We often attach a detailed diagram to an element (use case, or activity) by the following technique: 1) draw the detail diagram under the element, 2) make the element composite, and 3) draw the element back to the package where it belongs.

Problem: After a time of, say, 2 or 3 days I often find the composite state is lost. That means, the element's properties still say it is composite. But you can't open the attached diagram by double-clicking. Btw the composite sign (resembling a pair of glasses) is also missing  8-).

We use EA version 9.3.931; all views and packages of the model are versioned (Subversion repository; TortoiseSVN clients on the local workstations).

Any ideas?
Many thanks for your help!

Rolf

[qwerty]

I think having seen this issue too without remembering a solution for it. If you want to dig into it, here's a chapter from my book Inside EA:

Whenever you check the Advanced/Make Composite flag for elements EA associates the first diagram inside the element with the element (if there is no diagram present, EA creates one). This connection is persistent even if you move the diagram to somewhere else. While the element composite flag is identfied via
t_object.NType == 8
the according diagram reference is stored in t_xref:

                             

Column	Value
Description	t_object.ea_guid
Client	t_diagram.ea_guid
Name	DefaultDiagram
Type	element property

[ch65532]Activity elements are an exception (it’s EA!). Here the t_diagram.Diagram_ID is stored in t_object.PDATA1 instead of t_xref.

Maybe you'll find the lost data by investigating t_xref.

q.

[RolfK2013]

Hi qwerty,
thank you for your quick response! However, in my case it's not the data what gets lost, but the functionality. In other words, the detail diagram does still exist, but isn't navigable from the element any more.
Maybe that's another thought... Greetings, Rolf

[qwerty]

It's probably a bit too detailed what I wrote. But I was trying to express that fact. The link to the diagram and thus the flag "is composite" is expressed with the entry in t_xref. Probably the contents of this table is corrupted.

To elaborate a bit more: I have no idea what happens upon XMI ex-/import. No idea how the composite diagram is expressed in XMI format. But there's another source that could lead to such data loss.

q.

[Dieter Goetz]

Hi Rolf,

we are working with a same structure: an EAP-file split into controlled packages using svn.
Sometimes the link to controlled packages gets lost for composite elements (the infinite sign is missing). But we don't have a solution right now.
We are using EA 9.3 build 932.

Dieter

[Eve]

There is/was an issue where composite diagrams to other packages could be lost during an XMI round trip (such as version control). I think it was fixed, but I'm not 100% sure.

[Dieter Goetz]

Hi Simon,

could you please post the version with this issue fixed?
Dieter