To demonstrate the facilities of the CrossNamespaceCopier I’ve created a small meta model…

As you see the Class2 from the “http://source.namespace” has been eliminated in the “http://target.namespace” and both attributes have been moved - attribute2 to Class1 and attribute3 to Class3. In order to migrate a model instance one has to call the CrossNamespaceCopier which copies the objects while migrating the name spaces according to rules previously set. OtherClass objects from the “http://other.namespace” will be copied as they are. All references and attributes which could not be automatically migrated need to copied in a small script manually.

extension CrossNamespaceCopier;

namespace::target::Class1 migrate(namespace::source::Class1 sc1)
:   let tc1 =
    // initialization for the copier, but the
    // let statement needs to be in the beginning
    (   crossNsInitStaticInstance()
    ->  crossNsSetupNamespaceMapping(
            "http://source.namespace",
            "http://target.namespace")
    // the content for the tc1 variable
    ->  (   (namespace::target::Class1)
            crossNsCopy(sc1)))
    // skipping Class2 in source
:   tc1.setClass3Reference(
            (namespace::target::Class3)
            sc1.class2Reference.class3Reference
            .crossNsCopy())
    // pull up attribute2
->  tc1.setAttribute2(
            sc1.class2Reference.attribute2)
    // pull down attribute3
->  tc1.class3Reference.setAttribute3(
            sc1.class2Reference.attribute3)
    // uninitializing
->  crossNsReleaseStaticInstance()
->  tc1
;

You will find the CrossNamespaceCopier as well as the demo files contained in a zip file.

During the last days I have prepared a paper about the thesis for the MDSE 2008 workshop in Berlin. After my two MetamodelDoc presentations this would be my third public talk but the first in English. I look forward to see you there.

Update: The thesis is now available for download in the Publications section.

WikiMindMap uses the content from a language-specific (en, de, fr, …) Wikipedia to generate a FreeMind map which is displayed online. Genius!

< < < swooooosh > > >

I am back in the year 2008 - asking my self: “Why did I have kept the pages?” … Probably because of an article about Bresenham’s line algorithm in 16-bit-assembler(!).

Using search engines, news groups, forums or mailling lists  on a daily basis - life has become so easy…

EuGENia

… supports the development of GMF based editors using annotations in your metamodel (*.ecore) - preferably generated using Emfatic. Dimitrios Kolovos has written a nice tutorial and created a screencast.

ATLflow

Like in EuGENia - annotations in the metamodel are used to create a graphical editor. It is part of a complete tool chain for model transformations based on ATL. It is used for bootstrapping parts of ATLflow itself.

GenGMF

… uses a completely different approach. The GMF models are created from template-like tree structures. A template consist of GMF elements - just ready for duplicating for each metamodel element it is associated with. It is recommended to have some experience with the GMF models, before starting with GenGMF. GenGMF has been developed to support the creation of editors with a lot of metamodel elements.

Both annotation based solutions are not able to cover all the features possible with GMF, because the GMF models are created using the information stored in the metamodel. The template based approach GenGMF offers a lot more flexibility at the cost of a more complex model.

The thesis was written about the creation of a graphical editor for a model driven software development process. The abstract follows below:

„base“ is a model-driven software development environment for internal use by „b+m Informatik GmbH Berlin“. For editing models in „base“ a tree-based editor has been used in the past, which builds on the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF). A tree representation in particular is difficult to manage for the dataflow model, because conceptionally the model represents a graph in the mathematical sense of the word. The objective of this thesis was essentially optimizing the developmental process in „base“. To this end, a graphic editor for dataflow models was developed on the basis of the Graphical Modelling Framework (GMF). The meta-model, on which the dataflow models are based, contains 20 element types, which can be placed directly in the editor’s drawing area. The complexity of the models used in GMF increases over proportionally though with the number of element types and is consequently difficult to administrate. This was the reason for developing „GenGMF“ instead of implementing a graphic editor with GMF itself. „GenGMF“ is a Domain Specific Language with an appropriate generic model-to-model transformation for the automatic construction of GMF models. The dataflow editor was modeled using this new development for the construction of graphic editors. Using „GenGMF“ for development of the dataflow editor allowed construction of a „GenGMF“ model requiring 72% less model elements than generated GMF models. In addition, it did not have to be manually adjusted. The result is ease of use for presentation in the graphic dataflow editor.

If you have any questions regarding the thesis, „GenGMF“ or „base“ just send me a note.

by Marian Petre in Why looking isn’t always seeing