Re: UML via XML ?

[Neil Graham <neil@cs.toronto.edu>]

Hi Boris,

On Sat, 26 Oct 2002, Boris Daix wrote:

> I feel the solution is not so far... I can say
> that, for sure, the software you mentionned can export UML works in
> XML-like formats, that's already a not-so-bad thing.

So if I understand your plan, you're planning to figure out the
(indirect) mapping from UML to XMI, then use an SGML editor to write XMI
documents that you'll then feed to a UML generator.  Evidently, this is
indeed possible.  

> Well, psgml is an emacs-mode, not a parser.  But anyway, I've read
> that SGML parser can read XML, as HTML : the Python modules for SGML
> are often used to parse HTML, as it's a "tag-fashion" language too.

HTML is an SGML language; XML is not.  The trouble with using an SGML
editor to generate XML is that you're very likely to generate an
ill-formed XML document, which will cause an XML processor--like the one
that must underlie the UML generator--to barf all over your shoes.  I'm
certain emacs will have some kind of native XML mode, and equally that
emacspeak will support it well (TV Raman helped develop VoiceXML, so I
daresay he'll have completely solved this problem.  :) )  But this is
an anthill compared with the mountain of the core problem...

> He he...  I believe that if I say to my teatchers "Hey, look, with
> GNU/Linux, I'm able to work with UML (via XML)", I'm sure Open Software
> would be clapped for hours ! :-)

No question.  If I were you though, I think I'd unearth my manual tactile
diagram-drawing tools and crank UML out that way.  That's how I did
digital circuit diagrams way back when and it worked well enough; but then
everyone else was working manually too, so my disadvantage wasn't
acute.  But I'd analogize the XMI-to-UML solution to writing Java by using
a binary editor to produce bytecode, then using a disassembler to induce
Java from it...  In fact, that'd probably be much easier since bytecode
maps naturally back to Java, whereas XMI only maps to UML via the indirect
route of the MOF.  :)

Anyway, best of luck!  I dunno about other folks, but I'd love to hear how
you end up solving this problem; it's one more and more of us will face in
the future, no doubt about it.

Cheers,
Neil