Package Control Configuration with relative path

[Rafael Ribeiro]

Hi all,

 I am trying to split a project into several packages to better handle concurrent modification but I am facing some difficulties. Is it possible to specify "XMI Filename" on "Package Control Options" window using a relative path or an environment variable? Sincerely I tried using a path relative to the main project file but it simply did not work, EA complains saying "You must specify a valid path for export file". Apart from this, does anyone see any problem in this approach?

best regards,
Rafael Ribeiro

[«Midnight»]

EA seems to consider the XMI export path as a global variable. Each time you set the path it becomes the default for all XMI exports. [There might be two default paths: one for exporting the entire model, another for exporting any package tree. I think there is only the one default for both, but have not verified this.]

This setting is stored in the registry, and thereafter applies to any such option (i.e. any XMI path you need to specify) in every model you open thereafter. It also applies retroactively - in the sense that if you go back to another model (or package in the current model) where you had set a path, you will find it has changed to the most recent path you provided.

I suspect - without proof - that this 'hole' in EA dates back to legacy times when things were much simpler.

My suggestion is that you report either a bug or feature request, to have this path stored on a per-package or per-model basis. But of course, this is up to you (and Sparx).

David

[Rafael Ribeiro]

David,

 I kinda resolved this with a "Local Path" variable of type XMI. So, this way, every developer will have the ID that is project dependant configured for his machine.
 But one thing you said made me curious: you said that there are ways of saving whole model in XMI or package subtrees. The behaviour I'm seeing here is of saving the whole subtree and duplicating the contents of a inner tree. Is there any way of avoiding this?

regards,
Rafael

[«Midnight»]

Actually, I should have worded my statement more clearly.

In EA, XMI export (and import, but someone had to do an export first) always works at the package level. And it is always all or nothing (as far as the package structure) for that package and all those contained within it, to any depth.

So by "subtrees" I meant that XMI could extract the (entire) tree of packages starting with any 'contained' parent package, not just the entire model. [A model root is a package as far as XMI is concerned, so the entire model is the most general case of the above.]

You cannot extract a package while filtering out some of the packages contained underneath. Once you have designated the top package in the tree, the export is all or nothing - in the sense that you can always choose not to do the export, resulting in nothing, or continue and get everything (from the top package down).

Sorry about the confusion...

David

[Rafael Ribeiro]

Resolved the issue.
It seems like using (I should have tried this before) the builtin integration the filtering out is done by EA itself and then you can have a per-package locking and separation (what I was trying to have).
First attempt here was to use DBMS as persistence but team found it unusual (seeing other changes as it happens, unable to do reverts as SVN permits, etc).

anyways,

best regards and thanks for helping out!

[«Midnight»]

When using VC and a DBMS repository, be aware that the VC component uses XML files. These are not stored as part of the DBMS repository itself.

There is some additional information on this 'salted' throughout the forum, but it is difficult to find.