Author Topic: Has anyone succeed ? (Read 11496 times)

mkontro · « **on:** June 17, 2005, 03:19:34 am »

Has anyone succeed to export EA diagram to MsVisio with XMI format (Project | Export package to XMI). Have tried but always some kind of error occurs when trying to open it in Visio

Paolo F Cantoni · « **Reply #1 on:** June 17, 2005, 03:33:03 am »

Did you use the Unisys/Rose Format? That seems to be the most supported between the various tools?

Can you export from Visio and import into EA?

Paolo

mkontro · « **Reply #2 on:** June 17, 2005, 03:43:16 am »

Yes, I have tried all options on/off in EA export dialog without succeed. And i haven't tried other way around cause I don't need it and if I understand right I should install some add-on to Visio (version 2002) to do that (??).

Not an expert of XML/XMI stuff so should I use the DTD or not (tried both) ? I have three of them; UML.DTD, UML_EA.DTD and UMLX13.DTD in same dir than created xmi.

Best attempt gives some error message from the content of the xmi (vdx) file.

Paolo F Cantoni · « **Reply #3 on:** June 17, 2005, 04:37:41 am »

Quote

Yes, I have tried all options on/off in EA export dialog without succeed. And i haven't tried other way around cause I don't need it and if I understand right I should install some add-on to Visio (version 2002) to do that (??).

Not an expert of XML/XMI stuff so should I use the DTD or not (tried both) ? I have three of them; UML.DTD, UML_EA.DTD and UMLX13.DTD in same dir than created xmi.

Best attempt gives some error message from the content of the xmi (vdx) file.

What is the exact message you get? Do you know for sure you need to get the add-in for Visio. You do need one for Rational Rose 2003/2003 for example.

Paolo

mkontro · « **Reply #4 on:** June 17, 2005, 04:47:30 am »

I do following:

1. Export my diagram to XMI in EA with XMI 1.0 and use DTD checked (with these I can get furthest, otherwise it just says Could not open file in Visio)
2. Change created xmi qualifier to vdx
3. Open vdx in Visio
4. Get error message:

"...unable to open. It does not contain valid XML.
Line 1604, column...
Source: <Foundation.Core.StructuralFeature.type/>
Error: Element cannot be empty according to the DTD/Schema"

So it does something cause line is in that far. Just don't know XML so don't understand what is wrong. In diagram there is about 15 classes.

Paolo F Cantoni · « **Reply #5 on:** June 17, 2005, 05:54:03 am »

Quote

[SNIP]
Just don't know XML so don't understand what is wrong. In diagram there is about 15 classes.

I've just had a quick look at the Visio website. It seems you can export from Visio to XMI, but you can't go from XMI to Visio:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvisio02/html/umlxmi.asp provides the details.

Unfortunately it s a common misconception that just because something is in XML it is universally usable. XML is like the ability to speak. If I speak Russian and you speak Basque, we can't actually communicate.

To transport models between tools you need a common language. That language is called XMI (XML for Model Interchange). It is a form of XML just as Russian and Basque are both languages.

So, looks like you're out of luck.

Paolo

Eve · « **Reply #6 on:** June 21, 2005, 04:50:16 pm »

Thanks Paolo for providing the answer here.

I'd just like to clarify something though.

I'm not an expert on XMI, but my understanding is that although Visio does export to XMI, the XMI produced is not sufficient to reconstruct the full model.

So, you can't really take an XMI model from Visio into any other tool in any useful fasion.

Simon

Paolo F Cantoni · « **Reply #7 on:** June 21, 2005, 07:30:26 pm »

Quote

Thanks Paolo for providing the answer here.

I'd just like to clarify something though.

I'm not an expert on XMI, but my understanding is that although Visio does export to XMI, the XMI produced is not sufficient to reconstruct the full model.

So, you can't really take an XMI model from Visio into any other tool in any useful fashion.

Simon

Thanks Simon,

Can anyone verify that? Does anyone know what dialect of XMI Visio produces?

So it sounds as though Visio speaks Russian, but with a stutter?

(apologies to stutterers)

Paolo

Harley · « **Reply #8 on:** June 22, 2005, 06:40:30 am »

Yeah - I spent a number of fruitless hours trying to import (so-called) XMI that Visio had puked up

sargasso · « **Reply #9 on:** June 22, 2005, 05:16:45 pm »

Has anyone checked the visio puke against the XMI schema?
(Just interested)

bruce

mbc · « **Reply #10 on:** September 23, 2005, 02:38:22 am »

Quote

Has anyone checked the visio puke against the XMI schema?

Apparently, there is more than one XMI schema. The Visio puke certainly isn't valid according to the UML.DTD that ships with EA. It works a bit better with some of the others here:

http://www.omg.org/docs/ad/

I still haven't been able to actually import anything, though. There seems to be some inconsistencies in the Visio puke too.

Mikkel

Yen-Da · « **Reply #11 on:** September 30, 2005, 05:11:09 am »

I have been partly successful with the export of Visio model to EA as I have used Meta Integration Model Bridge (MIMB) (http://www.metaintegration.net/Products/Downloads/) which allows to transform e.g. Visio xmi output into other "formats". I have tried the transformation into OMG UML. Then I downloaded the XMI-UML-99-10-15.dtd from omg site and the following import of class diagrams into EA went ok.
Why am I saying that the success was partial? Because the trial version of MIMB only allows to transform 10 classes at once (which is not very much).
Also notice, that the english version of Visio should be used (the parameters etc. will not be recognised in other languages during the transformation in MIMB and therefore will not appear in EA after the import).

Yen-Da

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