Home » Modeling » OCL » XML representation of OCL constraints ?
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| Re: XML representation of OCL constraints ? [message #488952 is a reply to message #488841] |
Wed, 30 September 2009 20:10   |
 Ed Willink
Messages: 7655
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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|
Hi Andreas
OCL's concrete syntax is textual.
OCL's abstract syntax is a model that may be serialised to an XMI file.
OCL is re-used by many languages, so MDT/OCL supports extensibility.
An example of the AST form may be found in:
< http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.m2m/org .eclipse.qvt.declarative/tests/org.eclipse.qvt.declarative.t est.parser.qvtrelation/src/org/eclipse/qvt/declarative/test/ parser/qvtrelation/models/expressions.reference.eqvtrelation ?revision=1.5&root=Modeling_Project>
which may look rathyer frightening becuase it is a compiled
representation and so has type annotations throughout. The source QVT
Relation from which it came is at
< http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.m2m/org .eclipse.qvt.declarative/tests/org.eclipse.qvt.declarative.t est.parser.qvtrelation/src/org/eclipse/qvt/declarative/test/ parser/qvtrelation/models/expressions.qvtr?revision=1.1& root=Modeling_Project>
I'm not sure that your target is completely logical.
Ever since Fortran, all languages have used a very similar expression
representation that has only improved slightly through use of ".".
Why put a myriad of angle brackets and new lines in something that
you want to be readable?
In your management profile allow OCL expressions to be
.... value="some-ocl-expression" ....
Regards
Ed Willink
Andreas Maier wrote:
> Hi,
> I am working on a definition of an XML based representation of DMTF
> management profiles. Such profiles are able to define constraints on the
> CIM classes they use in the profile. We are already able to specify OCL
> constraints on the CIM classes, but there is some resistance in
> accepting a text based language like OCL in a otherwise XML representation.
>
> Therefore, I am i nsearch of a XML representation of OCL. That is, an
> OCL constraint would be represented in some XML syntax, but the OCL
> semantics would still be maintained.
>
> -> Does anyone know about prior work in this direction ?
>
> I ran across MathML from the W3C, which seems to provide a reasonable
> framework for the XML constructs, and it contains a rich set of
> mathematical operations including some (or probably most) of those that
> are defined in OCL, but it is not clear to me at a first glance how
> objects and their elements (basically the elements in a UML user model)
> could be referenced in MathML.
>
> -> Does anyone know about prior work to use MathML for defining
> constraints on UML user models ?
>
> Andy
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| XML representation of OCL constraints ? [message #488996 is a reply to message #488952] |
Thu, 01 October 2009 07:15 |
Andreas Maier
Messages: 32
Registered: July 2009 |
Member |
|
|
Ed,
the difficulty is that the acceptance of OCL in that community is
hampered by the perceived obscureness of the OCL spec (a perception that
I can understand well), and by the need to have an OCL validator that
can easily be integrated with runtime environments that host the user
model that is to be validated. In our use case, the objects that are
targeted by the OCL constraints are in a CIM server that supports a
certain API for accessing the objects (instances, classes), and the OCL
validator would be invoked in a test tool that runs against that CIM server.
Is there a list of OCL validators and syntax checkers somewhere ?
Also, the management profile description is already in XML, and thus it
would be natural to also express constraints in some form of XML.
That XML needs to be manually editable using a standard XML editor, so
any form of XMI rendered OCL is out of question, and any language that
is used calls for some form of syntax validation support. I like the OCL
syntax validation provided by RSA, but there the objects are in a UML
user model, and not in our runtime environment.
Andy
Ed Willink wrote:
> Hi Andreas
>
> OCL's concrete syntax is textual.
>
> OCL's abstract syntax is a model that may be serialised to an XMI file.
>
> OCL is re-used by many languages, so MDT/OCL supports extensibility.
>
> An example of the AST form may be found in:
>
> < http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.m2m/org .eclipse.qvt.declarative/tests/org.eclipse.qvt.declarative.t est.parser.qvtrelation/src/org/eclipse/qvt/declarative/test/ parser/qvtrelation/models/expressions.reference.eqvtrelation ?revision=1.5&root=Modeling_Project>
>
>
> which may look rathyer frightening becuase it is a compiled
> representation and so has type annotations throughout. The source QVT
> Relation from which it came is at
>
> < http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.m2m/org .eclipse.qvt.declarative/tests/org.eclipse.qvt.declarative.t est.parser.qvtrelation/src/org/eclipse/qvt/declarative/test/ parser/qvtrelation/models/expressions.qvtr?revision=1.1& root=Modeling_Project>
>
>
> I'm not sure that your target is completely logical.
>
> Ever since Fortran, all languages have used a very similar expression
> representation that has only improved slightly through use of ".".
> Why put a myriad of angle brackets and new lines in something that
> you want to be readable?
>
> In your management profile allow OCL expressions to be
>
> ... value="some-ocl-expression" ....
>
> Regards
>
> Ed Willink
>
> Andreas Maier wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I am working on a definition of an XML based representation of DMTF
>> management profiles. Such profiles are able to define constraints on
>> the CIM classes they use in the profile. We are already able to
>> specify OCL constraints on the CIM classes, but there is some
>> resistance in accepting a text based language like OCL in a otherwise
>> XML representation.
>>
>> Therefore, I am i nsearch of a XML representation of OCL. That is, an
>> OCL constraint would be represented in some XML syntax, but the OCL
>> semantics would still be maintained.
>>
>> -> Does anyone know about prior work in this direction ?
>>
>> I ran across MathML from the W3C, which seems to provide a reasonable
>> framework for the XML constructs, and it contains a rich set of
>> mathematical operations including some (or probably most) of those
>> that are defined in OCL, but it is not clear to me at a first glance
>> how objects and their elements (basically the elements in a UML user
>> model) could be referenced in MathML.
>>
>> -> Does anyone know about prior work to use MathML for defining
>> constraints on UML user models ?
>>
>> Andy
|
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| Re: XML representation of OCL constraints ? [message #489188 is a reply to message #488996] |
Thu, 01 October 2009 18:40 |
Ed Willink
Messages: 7655
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Hi Andreas
MDT/OCL provides a validator.
If you're using XML then syntax checking is irrelevant. Semantic
checking is close to validation.
I always recommend Jos Warmer and Anneke Kleppe's book for OCL;
certainly not the specification. You will find at the back that it
offers an alternate business oriented syntax. Perhaps you want to
define a new new lightweight XML source syntax. EMF will give
you a fair amount of support for it, GMF even more. A modest
tranlation would then yield a true OCL AST and enable all the
OCL evaluation tooling.
Have you considered BPEL?
Regards
Ed Willink
Andreas Maier wrote:
> Ed,
> the difficulty is that the acceptance of OCL in that community is
> hampered by the perceived obscureness of the OCL spec (a perception that
> I can understand well), and by the need to have an OCL validator that
> can easily be integrated with runtime environments that host the user
> model that is to be validated. In our use case, the objects that are
> targeted by the OCL constraints are in a CIM server that supports a
> certain API for accessing the objects (instances, classes), and the OCL
> validator would be invoked in a test tool that runs against that CIM
> server.
>
> Is there a list of OCL validators and syntax checkers somewhere ?
>
> Also, the management profile description is already in XML, and thus it
> would be natural to also express constraints in some form of XML.
>
> That XML needs to be manually editable using a standard XML editor, so
> any form of XMI rendered OCL is out of question, and any language that
> is used calls for some form of syntax validation support. I like the OCL
> syntax validation provided by RSA, but there the objects are in a UML
> user model, and not in our runtime environment.
>
> Andy
>
>
> Ed Willink wrote:
>> Hi Andreas
>>
>> OCL's concrete syntax is textual.
>>
>> OCL's abstract syntax is a model that may be serialised to an XMI file.
>>
>> OCL is re-used by many languages, so MDT/OCL supports extensibility.
>>
>> An example of the AST form may be found in:
>>
>> < http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.m2m/org .eclipse.qvt.declarative/tests/org.eclipse.qvt.declarative.t est.parser.qvtrelation/src/org/eclipse/qvt/declarative/test/ parser/qvtrelation/models/expressions.reference.eqvtrelation ?revision=1.5&root=Modeling_Project>
>>
>>
>> which may look rathyer frightening becuase it is a compiled
>> representation and so has type annotations throughout. The source QVT
>> Relation from which it came is at
>>
>> < http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.m2m/org .eclipse.qvt.declarative/tests/org.eclipse.qvt.declarative.t est.parser.qvtrelation/src/org/eclipse/qvt/declarative/test/ parser/qvtrelation/models/expressions.qvtr?revision=1.1& root=Modeling_Project>
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure that your target is completely logical.
>>
>> Ever since Fortran, all languages have used a very similar expression
>> representation that has only improved slightly through use of ".".
>> Why put a myriad of angle brackets and new lines in something that
>> you want to be readable?
>>
>> In your management profile allow OCL expressions to be
>>
>> ... value="some-ocl-expression" ....
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Ed Willink
>>
>> Andreas Maier wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> I am working on a definition of an XML based representation of DMTF
>>> management profiles. Such profiles are able to define constraints on
>>> the CIM classes they use in the profile. We are already able to
>>> specify OCL constraints on the CIM classes, but there is some
>>> resistance in accepting a text based language like OCL in a otherwise
>>> XML representation.
>>>
>>> Therefore, I am i nsearch of a XML representation of OCL. That is, an
>>> OCL constraint would be represented in some XML syntax, but the OCL
>>> semantics would still be maintained.
>>>
>>> -> Does anyone know about prior work in this direction ?
>>>
>>> I ran across MathML from the W3C, which seems to provide a reasonable
>>> framework for the XML constructs, and it contains a rich set of
>>> mathematical operations including some (or probably most) of those
>>> that are defined in OCL, but it is not clear to me at a first glance
>>> how objects and their elements (basically the elements in a UML user
>>> model) could be referenced in MathML.
>>>
>>> -> Does anyone know about prior work to use MathML for defining
>>> constraints on UML user models ?
>>>
>>> Andy
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