UML2 Utilities for Model Driven Development

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What are UML2 Utilities for Model Driven Development?

The UML2 is designed and specified as a general-purpose modeling language for object-oriented software systems. However, achieving this broad applicability means that many common tasks, such as finding and creating model element instances, can be cumbersome. UML2 Utilities for Model Driven Development includes a convenient API (application programming interface) that simplifies creation of UML2 elements, provides higher levels of abstraction, and often supports a specific language context, such as Java.

These utilities do not represent a separate framework or programming layer; instead, they are a collection of easy-to-use, stateless APIs that can be used on a case-by-case basis to perform common tasks in the creation of MDD (model-driven development) automation. The emphasis and goal of these utilities is make it unnecessary for the MDD automation developer to understand the details of the UML2 implementation; the developer can focus instead on the domain content of the automation.

These utilities center around the idea that most models being created or modified in a MDD transformation or pattern eventually target a specific language, such as Java or C++. Therefore, many of the utilities make it convenient to use Java notation to specify types and operations. The alternative is to invoke and manipulate many more of the underlying UML2 APIs to achieve the same result.

Using the included API, users of model development can easily manipulate models, apply transformations, and extend this environment while maintaining the flexibility and generality of the API. For example, one sample utility for Rational Software Architect (RSA) that uses this API is the Bulk Adder. This pop-up utility demonstrates a simple and efficient way of quickly entering a large number of attributes and operations for a UML class in a Java context without having to constantly reach for the mouse and click in the model element each time one wants to enter a property. The Library Creator is another example that can be used with Eclipse and UML2 only (RSA is not required). It demonstrates how to create a simple pop-up menu on a Java project JAR file that will create a UML2 model file containing all the types in the JAR. These types can then be referenced by other models. A third example demonstrates how to use the utilities in a RSA Pattern and how it can be used to customize Java code generation.

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