[Uml-devel] save-load features/requests

[Andrew Sutton]

On Tuesday 01 October 2002 08:44 am, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> > can we add a module on the project page for save/load type stuff -
> > anything dealing with XMI?
>
> If there's stuff to put in it then we'll do that.  Egon suggested a
> Javadoc to XMI programme so that could, but just now I don't see what
> would go in it.

actually, we could probably generalize the whole thing to a persistence or 
serialization module. there needs to be some serious work on how that stuff 
is dealt with - i'd sent an earlier email proposing some changes (splitting 
save file into multiple files in an archive - one contains xmi, the other, 
application specific information).

i've done some preliminary work on building a fairly generic xmi parser - 
although i haven't been working on it the last couple days. its purpose is to 
serve as a boot-strap loader that might help pave the way for a standards 
compliant mof/uml editor in later versions.

basically, it starts with an XMI document that recursively walks the DOM tree. 
visitors (classes) are registered with the tree-walker so they get called 
when a particular element is encountered. so far, i have visitors for about 
30% of the XMI elements and 40% of the MOF elements. they don't do anything 
right now, but they will. anyway, each node creates or modifies a context 
which is kept on a stack. a context object is basically an adapter for 
various objects including things like UMLObject, UMLOperation, etc. using 
this basic architecture, i should be able to tie the XMI loader into UML 
Modeller and load the raw data for both the MOF specification and 
(eventually) the uml specification. it needs a little more work right now, 
but if you're interested, i can post the code when i get the context stuff 
working right.

> Say, there was someone on Radio 4 just now from Kent University in America
> debating how "intellectual property" harms poor countries.  Can't remember
> the name though.

hmm... can't say i heard anything about it. was it kent or kent state? i don't 
know if there's a kent university, but i go to kent state. i wonder if it was 
a computer science professor.

andy