Author Topic: New Language Support  (Read 14504 times)

devinhedge

  • EA Novice
  • *
  • Posts: 3
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
New Language Support
« on: September 29, 2003, 12:55:01 pm »
My understanding is that v3.6 will let me define languages in XML and then use the XML for reverse and forward engineering the code.

I haven't seen any documentation that show how to do this. I'm working on PHP and would be happy to contribute the XML pack to the group.

Currently I export UML from EA to XMI 1.0 and then use xmi2php to do code generation. This is great so long as you don't mind having to do EVERYTHING in EA before exporting the once and only final time.

Does anyone know how to add PHP (or any other language) as a new language type in EA?

Devin.

benc

  • EA Administrator
  • EA User
  • *****
  • Posts: 200
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: New Language Support
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2003, 07:57:10 pm »
Hi Devin,

You can add a new Product/Language under EA using the Configuration | Langauage Datatypes menu option.  
This does not however, facilitate reverse engineering of that language.

(For Code Engineering purposes, the new product can be combined with EA's code Templates for forward generating code.  That is, you can create a set of php templates in EA and generate your code base using them.)

Your strategy of using XMI in round-trip engineering sounds inventive, though I think what's really missing is a "php2xmi" tool.  Then the approach might be:
1.  Forward generate PHP code in EA
2.  Modify PHP code outside EA
3.  Generate the equivalent XMI using "php2xmi"
4.  Import the generated XMI into EA.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a tool converts php code to XMI.

We have had several requests to natively support PHP in EA.  It is certainly our intention to do so, but it won't be in the immediate future.

Sorry I could not be of more help at this stage.

Regards,
Ben




devinhedge

  • EA Novice
  • *
  • Posts: 3
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: New Language Support
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2003, 02:23:58 pm »
Thanks for the input.

Just as an asside:
Here is something everyone might want to try in the interim:
1) Download PHPedit and use this as your "Windows" based PHP editor. There is also a Linux version if you dig long enough. You can get PHPEdit at http://www.phpedit.net/
2) Go to this thread in thier forum (http://www.phpedit.net/support/viewtopic.php?t=66) and download the  HelpGen2XMI plug-in for PHPEdit. This will allow you to do the following workflow:
    a) Generate a xml based Help file from your php scripts
    b) Generate an XMI file based on the xml help file for import into EA.

Now if only I can get everyone to work together using a common API for "inter-program" communications to do automatic roundtrip updates like TogetherJ does/did.

Devin.

p.s. I'm still testing it myself. Your results may vary.

SpoonsJTD

  • EA User
  • **
  • Posts: 39
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: New Language Support
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2003, 02:36:50 pm »
This seems like something that might be best implemented by adding .NET CodeDom support to EA.  CodeDom is Microsoft's strategy for language-neutral tools that allow people to create custom providers for different languages.