Messages

1

General Board / New eBook

« on: February 20, 2026, 10:57:52 pm »

Hi All,
I've written a new book to help folks in making their EA deployments go smoothly.  It's aim is to help those who are moving from a solo type environment towards shared repositories -- i.e. those who need to understand topics like DBMS, PCS, RAS, and similar features that go beyond the basics.

https://leanpub.com/ea-playbook

2

Bugs and Issues / Re: Cannot Find "Model Views Toolbar"

« on: June 06, 2020, 07:22:45 am »

Understood.  Unfortunately I don't have Powerpoint on my home PC, and my presentation was just a walkthrough of several class models.  I couldn't find a way to order them.  My workaround was to open the diagrams in normal mode, organize the tabs, and create a working set.  Still, it looks like I found another bug.

I'm hoping you're right on the upcoming coffee-maker functionality.  I've been waiting a long time for that one. 

3

Bugs and Issues / Cannot Find "Model Views Toolbar"

« on: June 06, 2020, 02:17:38 am »

I am trying to create a slideshow (first time), but ordering the slides is an issue, since I cannot find the "Model Views Toolbar" described in the documentation.  Ctrl+Arrows also does not do the trick.  Have I discovered a bug, or am I missing something.  I've seen this on builds 1526 and 1528.

4

General Board / Re: Generic Method Parameters

« on: May 14, 2020, 07:47:04 am »

I agree that it should show up in the dropdown, but you can just enter any type (including T) manually.

5

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Renaming via Transform

« on: May 07, 2020, 03:01:38 am »

When I rename a class during transform, I would like the references to that class to be renamed, as well.  For example -- if I have an interface in my pim named "ActiveUser" and I transform to C#, I would like to follow the C# interface convention and rename it "IActiveUser".  This is simple enough.   The problem I have is that I would also like to transform all methods that take "ActiveUser" as a parameter, or classes that use it as an attribute type to also reference "IActiveUser" in their transformed incarnations.  I have not figured out how to make this part work.  Is there a macro for this?

6

General Board / Re: Attribute Initial Value generated code

« on: January 15, 2020, 11:02:34 am »

For a quick (partial) success, try this:

• In "Class Body Impl" change in "Attribute" to "AttributeImpl" and eliminate the two  "Private" scope checks at the end of that same statement. Take care not to delete the trailing '%'.
• Populate the "Attribute Impl" template with the code:
  %AttributeDeclarationImpl%
• In the "Attribute Declaration" template, replace the line that checks for attStatic with the text "extern" (without quotes).
• Cut-n-paste the following code into the "Attribute Declaration Impl" template:
  %if attTag:"define" == "true" and attScope != "Public"%
  %PI=""%
  #define %attName%
  %attInitial ? value%
  %endTemplate%
  
  %PI=" "%
  
  %attScope=="Private"  ? "static"%
  %attConst=="T" ? "const"%
  %attVolatile=="T" ? "volatile"%
  
  %if attStereotype=="struct"%
  struct
  %elseIf attStereotype=="union"%
  union
  %elseIf attStereotype=="enumeration"%
  enum
  %endIf%
  
  %attType%
  
  %PI=""%
  %attContainment=="By Reference" ? "*" : ""%
  
  %if attStereotype != "alignment"%
  %attName%
  %attInitial ? " = " value%
  %endIf%
  
  %if classStereotype == "struct" or classStereotype == "union"%
  %attTag:"bitfield" ? ":" value%
  %endIf%
  
  %if attCollection == "T" and attContainerType != ""%
  %attContainerType%
  %endIf%
  ;
  

That worked for me.  Good luck.

7

General Board / Re: Attribute Initial Value generated code

« on: January 15, 2020, 08:58:29 am »

I just looked at the stock C templates.  There appears to be issues with them... 

First -- They should be using the Impl templates uniformly to deal with the differences between .h and .c files.  They don't do that for attributes.  In the Attribute Declaration template, they only expand the attInitial in limited circumstances (enum, #define, etc.).  Absolutely correct for a .h file.

There is no way from within the template to know if you should be on the Impl side, so different templates (Attribute Impl & Attribute Declaration Impl) is needed to expand the attInitial on the .c file.

There is also mis-application of the "static" keyword, which should never appear in the .h file, and should be associated with a "Private" attScope rather than attStatic for this language.  Variables should be "extern" in the .h file.  etc.

It looks to me like quite a bit of template modification is needed to get C code that will compile and work as expected.  If C is your language, it will be worthwhile.

8

Uml Process / Re: UML and Ada

« on: January 14, 2020, 10:27:48 am »

If you don't intend to generate code, I think there are some straight-forward approaches to modelling it.  It may be a bit more challenging if you do, since you'll need to develop the templates that agree with the techniques.

Presumably you are referring to generic procedures or functions, since the package would be naturally supported.   The solution I've seen suggested for C# is to wrap the function in a parameterized class.  I would apply a custom stereotype (e.g. <<generic function>>) to the class, then create a code generation stereotype that discards the wrapper.

I think a variant record fits the paradigm of a parent class where the variant portions are inherited classes.  Possibly using a <<variant>> stereotype for these, with the class name being the discriminator. Code generation might require storing them as inner classes within another <<variant record>> container.  Again, some custom code templates would be in order to get this to generate code.

9

General Board / Re: Attribute Initial Value generated code

« on: January 14, 2020, 06:36:19 am »

I do quite a bit of code generation, including behavioral.  I haven't seen this issue.  What language are you trying to generate for?   In the C# templates I know this works, and it is declared within the "Attribute Declaration" template as:

%attName%
%attInitial ? " = " value%

One pitfall I had in the past was expecting to see it generate in an interface class, which would be illegal in C# -- so is not coded into that template.

10

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Code generation template - operation pre and post conditions

« on: January 08, 2020, 07:23:00 am »

I've been waiting for this since 2008.

I have not found a way to generate constraints for operations.  It is possible to create and expand constraints for classes, leaving me to believe it's just an oversight that you cannot do it for operations.

11

Bugs and Issues / Re: Cannot Publish to Joomla!

« on: March 09, 2018, 12:31:45 pm »

Thank you.  I did email Sparx Support, and they diagnosed the problem immediately.  I'll relay the info for those who may follow in my footsteps...

It seems that the ODBC connection must be configured as a User DSN, and I had configured as a System DSN.  That was it.  Works like a charm now.   I'm still configured as described above, otherwise.

12

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Not able to generate implementation by using a custom C++ language

« on: March 09, 2018, 10:29:02 am »

It's promising that you are seeing the file header comments. This means the impl side is being called.  Keep in mind that the file isn't written until the template recursion is complete, so you are either not recursing beyond the "FileImpl" template, or a called template is terminating prematurely.  The templates can be very touchy, and don't provide much feedback when something goes wrong.  I often insert debug statements along the way to determine where things are going wrong.  Usually I just omitted a % somewhere along the way.

13

Bugs and Issues / Re: Cannot Publish to Joomla!

« on: March 09, 2018, 08:17:44 am »

I searched them before my post -- no other reports of this issue.  I suspect that this is a new issue, likely caused by XAMPP replacing MySQL with MariaDB.   The API is the same, since it is a fork of MySQL, but the version ID reports back that it is Maria.   I'm hoping that there is either a work-around, or that Sparx is able to make changes to allow MariaDB in the EA14, since it sounds like there is a move by Oracle to make MySQL a paid product.  This is why the developers created the fork.

14

Bugs and Issues / Cannot Publish to Joomla!

« on: March 09, 2018, 04:18:37 am »

I'm trying the "Publish to Joomla!" functionality for the first time, and I've been hitting the same wall for a few days now.

I am running EA 13.5 on Windows 10 Pro.

At this point, I have followed the instructions for XAMPP / Joomla! installation.  (http://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/13.5/model_publishing/publish_joomla.html).   
I had previously attempted using the Bitnami install of Joomla, but since it violated the requirements about  folder location and the database name being the same as the folder name, I uninstalled that and re-installed from the raw Joomla! package in the htdocs folder.

I am able to set up everything under the "Publish as Joomla! Article" dialog in EA, except that the Joomla! User  drop-down remains unpopulated, and attempts to set it result in an error "Enterprise Architect currently supports publishing to MySQL based Joomla! Database only"

I set up my ODBC connection to MariaDB.  XAMPP now ships with MariaDB instead of MySQL, but all information I could find indicates that it should be transparent to clients.  ** I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS MAY BE THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM, BUT WANTED CONFIRMATION BEFORE MODIFYING XAMPP TO THIS EXTENT IN CASE THERE MAY BE A SIMPLE WORKAROUND **

My connection string is "DBType=0;Connect=Provider=MSDASQL.1;Persist Security Info=False;User ID=root;Data Source=Joomla4Maria;Initial Catalog=joomla_staged;"

I am able to read and write the database, and the ODBC setup connection tests pass.

The driver being used is the MySQL ODBC 5.3 ANSI Driver.  Results are the same for the MySQL ODBC 5.3 Unicode Driver and the MariaDB ODBC 3.0 Driver.   Results also don't change whether I use the default root user with blank password, or another admin user with a password.

Suggestions anyone?

15

General Board / Re: Working with statemachines

« on: March 24, 2015, 05:05:39 am »

Got it!  Thanks.  I hadn't noticed the operation "Action" dropdown in my hasty search for an answer.