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Reg Exp Layers by association to class (OCL) [message #1769741]

Thu, 03 August 2017 06:17

André Spindler

Messages: 3
Registered: August 2017

Junior Member

Hi there, I'm new to UML/OCL/Papyrus an the lack of forum exchange about this gives me a feeling I might be on the wrong path:

Working on a class diagramm I would like to layer a) all objects that are members of a composition and b) all interfaces that inherit from another interface. That is, I would say, layering by direct and indirect association.

In papyrus I could do this by simply adding elements to a layer. More convenient would be the use of Reg Exp Layers, which select all elements returning TRUE on an OCL boolean expression.

But I would also like to put all (downwards?) associated elements of 'myclass' on that layer. Any suggestions?

Thank you.

PS: Cross post from Stackoverflow (with no answers)

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Re: Reg Exp Layers by association to class (OCL) [message #1769850 is a reply to message #1769741]

Fri, 04 August 2017 08:19

Ed Willink

Messages: 7655
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Hi

I saw your stackoverflow question because you tagged it as "ocl" even though it has almost nothing to do with OCL. Since nobody is answering...

While layers may allow you to fold multiple logical diagrams into a single diagram, it seems very misguided.

I find that once diagrams get non-trivial, it is helpful to draw one diagram showing the inheritance architecture, another the containment architecture and perhaps further diagrams for the construction/destruction, communication architectures. Forcing a positional sharing with layers seems to create an undesirable limitation. Remember a UML Diagram is a view of the underlying Model. You may have many Diagrams for different views.

Regards

Ed Willink

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Re: Reg Exp Layers by association to class (OCL) [message #1769871 is a reply to message #1769741]

Fri, 04 August 2017 10:42

Carsten Pitz

Messages: 479
Registered: May 2015
Location: Germany

Senior Member

Hi André,

your approach is very common in the domains CAD, PCB design and other incarnations of graphical design. Different annotations of the design are separated using layers.

Well as written before both, CAD and PCB design is graphic design. Your drawings look very much like the product these represent. Given that, it is the natural approach using layers to annotate the drawings of the product.

With UML/SysML the diagrams in general do not represent something visible. The diagrams do not look like the products these represent. The level of abstraction is completely different. The approach Ed sketched in his post for me proved[1] much more powerful in the domain of systems engineering. So I advise you to follow this approach.

/Carsten

[1] based on my experience with BridgePoint (https://xtuml.org/) a systems engineering tool that, at the time I used it only supported the layer approach.

[Updated on: Fri, 04 August 2017 11:35]

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Re: Reg Exp Layers by association to class (OCL) [message #1769960 is a reply to message #1769871]

Mon, 07 August 2017 06:47

André Spindler

Messages: 3
Registered: August 2017

Junior Member

Allright, thank you. I can well follow your answers. Although what I am doing is also closely related to software development, I wasn't quite aware to be so totally in that world using UML. We are modeling something more "real", a facility structure. And we are, too, integrating different roles/views in that model. At this point all my classes have more or less direct associations in real live.

An example: "A box is an asset. An example of a box is a cardbox. Boxes are also geometric objects, for example cuboids which would make them rectangles in the horizontal projection. Boxes are storaging devices. A storaging devices has an empty volume, ... . Boxes can be made out of... ."

So there are some main classes/interfaces representing different views and everythin that is an asset can also take a role in each of the other views. For the development of the model I would have found it convenient to use the layering functionality but it is also, of course, possible to make a single model for each view.

Thanks again for your support.
André

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Re: Reg Exp Layers by association to class (OCL) [message #1769966 is a reply to message #1769960]

Mon, 07 August 2017 07:04

Ed Willink

Messages: 7655
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Hi

You seem to misunderstand UML.

"to make a single model for each view"

You can of course do this, but it seems very undesirable. You could aim to have one Model with one or more Packages to capture your underlying design. You may then have many Diagrams each of which provides a view of your Model to suit some particular purpose. Perhaps you have not investigated the various Create Diagram facilities properly.

Regards

Ed Willink

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