Author Topic: Tagged values of stereotyped association ends (Read 5616 times)

pzenden · « **on:** July 01, 2007, 11:19:51 pm »

I use a uml profile in which I define a stereotype 'MyAssociationRole' extending the meta-class 'AssociationRole'. Next I add several attributes to 'MyAssociationRole', which result in tagged values for this stereotype.
When I use this profile in a new model and I model 2 classes and an association between them, I can assign the stereotype 'MyAssociationRole' to either end of the association via the association properties window (tab Source Role/Target Role). However, I can't find any way to access the tagged values I defined for 'MyAssociationRole'. I would expect that they turn up in the Tagged Values window under either Connector Source or Connector Target, but they don't.

I searched the forum but couldn't find an answer. Am I missing something? Does anybody knows whether there is a way to fill in the tagged values of 'MyAssociationRole', or is it a missing feature of EA ?

MattKnight · « **Reply #1 on:** January 25, 2008, 03:10:25 am »

Hi,

i have the same problem.
I am using EA 7.0.815.

Is it a bug

Did we something wrong

Ciao,
Matt

Frank Horn · « **Reply #2 on:** January 25, 2008, 03:34:45 am »

It's something general I think. The same happens if you have a class or association stereotype in your profile: Create a class (without stereotype) and later assign the stereotype to it. EA will NOT add the tagged values defined in your profile.

With a class or an association or something it's not so obvious, cause you would in most cases drag it from the toolbox or create it via menu. Then it has the stereotype from the start, and EA DOES add the tagged values.

But you cannot drag a role from the toolbox, so it will never be created with the stereotype and thus will never have the tagged values. Meaning that a role stereotype in a profile is next to useless.

I think EA should add the tagged values defined in a profile every time a stereotype is assigned. The way it is now, working with a profile can be a real pain. If you have chosen the wrong stereotype and you want to change it, you either don't get the tagged values for the new one, or you have to delete the element and create it again, losing all it's dependencies.

But of course it's not so easy, for the element may have had another stereotype from the profile before. Should EA then delete the tagged values belonging to the old stereotype? Or only those not identical (with respect to name and type) with tagged values for the new stereotype? Or show a dialog with a list where we can check "delete" or "keep" for each old value? How to handle duplicate tagged value names then? And what about multiple stereotypes?

«Midnight» · « **Reply #3 on:** January 25, 2008, 04:31:55 am »

Have any of you submitted a bug report to Sparx? If not, please do so.

[BTW, they might need a little while. Sparx is working furiously to get 7.1 out the door, so this is a good time to get that report in; it would be nice to get this corrected in the new release. Also, remember that next week is a short week - Monday is a holiday in the Land of AUS - so they might be a bit slower getting back to you.]

The above said, please let us know what you hear back from Sparx.

David

peter.zrnko · « **Reply #4 on:** January 25, 2008, 05:03:48 am »

Hi Matt

have you tried to Synch Tagged Values and Constrains?
You can access this command from the stereotype in Resources browser / Profiles.
(It's just a tip, I didn't try it.)

Frank Horn · « **Reply #5 on:** January 25, 2008, 05:23:04 am »

Quote

Hi Matt

have you tried to Synch Tagged Values and Constrains?

I'm not Matt, but I would have liked to try it. It's not there anymore, though, cause MDG technologies loaded the EA 7 way (by placing them in the EA program folder's MDGTechnologies subfolder) don't show in the resource browser.

«Midnight» · « **Reply #6 on:** January 25, 2008, 05:40:41 am »

YA bug report methinks.

At the very least the documentation should be updated to tell us how to do this.

Sparx has made some documentation updates in this area in response to a spate of reports I've filed. You'll see them in the 7.1 docs. However, this one is not among them. [Assuming it is documentation only, this might be a 'real' problem, if they have removed the sync function.]

David

MattKnight · « **Reply #7 on:** January 25, 2008, 06:59:14 am »

Thanx for your responses.

It seems that this is a bug.
I posted a bug report to sparxx.

My workaround:
I use a stereotype that extends the metaclass 'Association'. This works with tagged values.

Ciao,
Matt

MattKnight · « **Reply #8 on:** January 29, 2008, 11:57:25 pm »

Just for info:

The response to my bug report:
"Thank you for your e-mail. You are correct that the tagged values for an association role are not shown. This was an omission and currently there is no work-around. We will fix this. Your fault report number, for future reference, is 08011543."

Ciao,
Matt

«Midnight» · « **Reply #9 on:** January 30, 2008, 03:56:11 am »

Thanks for the update Matt,

Now that 7.1 is in beta, perhaps Sparx can start on this kind of thing. [Of course there will be updates to the beta for a while, but this is still the best time.]

David

pzenden · « **Reply #10 on:** January 31, 2008, 09:01:21 pm »

Hi, Thank you all for addressing this issue.

The current work-around we use is that we defined the tagged values (we originally needed on an association end) on the level of the association but twice: using a prefix to distinguish between the tagged values for the source end and the tagged valued for the target end.
This obviously works but from the usage point of view is very time-consuming and the number of tagged values can explode which makes it difficult to get a clear view of all the settings.

Paul

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