[Note: Information on the OMG's XML/Value Type RFP is provided in a separate document.]
[January 28, 2000] An update on XMI 1.1 from Sridhar Iyengar (Unisys). "The XMI 1.1 spec shows how XMI can be used for models as well as instances. The OMG is in final phase of adopting XMI 1.1 which makes XMI and the generated XML DTDs and Documents much more readable. XMI 1.1 also has support for XML Namespaces which were adopted after XMI became an OMG standard. Read the RTF final report for a quick summary of changes. The XMI Revision Task Force already has preliminary designs that leverage XML Schema. After W3C adoption, XMI will be formally enhanced to support Schemas (DTDs will still be supported). The other key development at OMG is the Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) specification initial submission which leverages XMI for the complex domain of data warehouse management. The CWM DTDs and related UML models can be found at http://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/CWMI_RFP.html. The XMI 1.1 overview/presentation highlights a demonstration at the November 1999 OMG meeting that showed use of XMI in exchanging data warehouse metadata (relational and OLAP schemas, logical design models etc,). One of the summary slides at end shows adopted technologies (DTDs for MOF, UML, IDL, CORBA Components), DTDs in proposal stage : CWM (Data warehousing), Java, EJB and emerging work in Electronic Commerce, CORBAMed, Enterprise Application Integration. Relevant XMI 1.1 documents can be found at www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc (ad/99-10-13, 12, 11, 05, 06...)" [See Vote Status: XMI RTF.
[January 14, 2000] Documents relevant at the time of balloting the XMI RTF (XMI 1.1). From: http://www.omg.org/techprocess/faxvotes/XMI_RTF.html:
- XMI 1.1 RTF Main revised document - OMG XMI 1.1 RTF. 25 October 1999. OMG XMI v. 1.1: Revisions and Recommendations Summary. By: OMG XMI Revision Task Force. OMG Document ad/99-10-02, 284 pages. "The main purpose of XMI is to enable easy interchange of metadata between modeling tools(based on the OMG UML) and metadata repositories (OMG MOF based) in distributed heterogeneous environments. XMI integrates three key industry standards: (1) XML - eXtensible Markup Language, a W3C standard; (2) UML - Unified Modeling Language, an OMG modeling standard; (3) MOF - Meta Object Facility, an OMG metamodeling and metadata repository standard. The integration of these three standards into XMI marries the best of OMG and W3C metadata and modeling technologies, allowing developers of distributed systems to share object models and other metadata over the Internet." [archive copy]
- XMI 1.1 RTF Revised appendices. A.1 This appendix contains a normative DTD that represents the UML 1.1 metamodel. It was generated by a program that closely follows rule set 1 in Chapter 7, "XML DTD Production". The program created the DTD from a Rational Rose model representing the UML 1.1 metamodel as defined in the document "UML Semantics version 1.1, 1 September 1997". The metamodel in that document was changed by adding role names to associations that did not have them. B.1 The MOF 1.1 XMI 1.1 DTD included here uses Rule Set 1 rather than Rule Set 3, which was used for the previous DTD. To use the Corba XML elements that were included in the previous DTD, you will need to add them to the fixed DTD part of this DTD. C.1 Introduction This appendix provides the following example UML models and their resultant XML encoding. (1) An example of a department at a university. (2) An example of a model of a schedule, using the department and a campus model. (3) An example of instances of a schedule. (4) An example using an IDL datatype metamodel for complete datatype metamodels." [archive copy]
- XMI 1.1 RTF Final report, PDF. "This report summarizes the work of the first XMI Revision Task Force (XMI RTF) that was chartered by the Platform Technical Committee in January 1999 to produce a minor revision to the original OMG XMI Specification (version 1.0; document ad/98-10-05 and 06). It describes the scope and process of the RTF and outlines the areas of significant change in the recommended revision (version 1.1; document ad/99-10-02 and 03), including change bars. The RTF issues list is at the end of this document. This report summary concludes with recommendations for future revisions of the XMI specification... The W3C is expected to adopt XML Schemas as a Recommendation during 2000. It is expected that XMI 1.1 documents will be compatible with XML Schemas and will be able to enable their use through additional options. Prototype work has already occurred to verify that progress on XMI is consistent with expectations for XML Schemas. The work on Namespaces above is a prerequisite for successful use of XML Schemas." [archive copy]
- XMI 1.1 RTF UML DTD; [archive copy]
- XMI 1.1 RTF MOF DTD; [archive copy]
- XMI 1.1 RTF Issues list; [archive copy]
- Main revised documents of the 1.1 spec with change bars; [archive copy]
- Revised appendices without change bars (XMI 1.1 spec); [archive copy]
The XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI) was proposed in response to an Object Management Group (OMG) Request For Proposal (RFP) on 1997年12月03日 relating to a Stream-based Model Interchange. The RFP solicited proposals "for a transfer format specification for file export/import of models, and a transfer format specification for unique identification of the version of the MOF meta-metamodel and any metamodels referenced but not included in an SMIF-compliant transfer." Three initial submissions relative to the RFP were received, from: 1) Daimler-Benz Research and Technology and Recerca Informàtica 2) Fujitsu/Softeam; and 3) a larger industry group led by DSTC, IBM, Oracle, Platinum Technology, and Unisys. The XMI proposal came as an initial submission from the third group. The first two submissions address the role of XML, but in neither case does XML constitute so central a feature in as in the XMI proposal.
In its initial proposal, the XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI) "specifies an open information interchange model that is intended to give developers working with object technology the ability to exchange programming data over the Internet in a standardized way, thus bringing consistency and compatibility to applications created in collaborative environments. By establishing an industry standard for storing and sharing object programming information, development teams using various tools from multiple vendors can still collaborate on applications. The proposed standard will allow developers to leverage the web to exchange data between tools, applications, and repositories to create secure, distributed applications built in a team development environment. [The XMI standard would] combine the benefits of the web-based XML standard for defining, validating, and sharing document formats on the web with the benefits of the object-oriented Unified Modeling Language (UML), a specification of the Object Management Group (OMG) that provides application developers a common language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting distributed objects and business models.' [from the IBM description]
"The main purpose of XMI is to enable easy interchange of metadata between modeling tools (based on the OMG UML) and between tools and metadata repositories (OMG MOF based) in distributed heterogeneous environments. XMI integrates three key industry standards: 1) XML - eXtensible Markup Language, a W3C standard; 2) UML - Unified Modeling Language, an OMG modeling standard; 3) MOF - Meta Object Facility and OMG modeling and metadata repository standard. The integration of these three standards into XMI marries the best of OMG and W3C metadata and modeling technologies allowing developers of distributed systems share object models and other meta data over the Internet. XMI, together with MOF and UML form the core of the OMG repository architecture that integrates object oriented modeling and design tools between each other and with a MOF based extensible repository framework as illustrated [in Figure 1-1.] This architecture allows tools to share metadata programmatically using CORBA interfaces specified in the MOF and UML standards or by using XML based stream (or file) containing MOF and UML compliant modeling specifications. This allows the widest degree of latitude for tool, repository and object framework developers and lowers the barrier to entry for implementing OMG metadata standards. The OMG OA&DTF members have already begun extending this architecture to managing data warehousing metadata in the Common Warehouse Metadata Interchange (CWMI) initiative. [adapted from the Introduction to the OMG document 'ad/98-07-01' of July 6, 1998]
"The [OMG - SMIF -XMI] submission mainly consists of: 1) A set of XML Document Type Definition (DTD) production rules for transforming MOF based metamodels to XML DTDs; 2) A set of XML Document production rules for encoding and transfering MOF based metadata; 3) Design principles for XMI based DTDs; 4) Concrete DTDs for UML and MOF. This submission defines these standards and provides proof of concept that covers key aspects of the XMI. The submission represents the integration of work currently underway by the co-submitters and supporters in the areas of object repositories, object modeling tools, web authoring technology and business object management in distributed object environments. The co-submitters intend to commercialize the XMI technology within the guidelines of the OMG.
"Adoption of this submission would enhance meta data management and meta data interoperability in distributed object environments in general and in distributed development environments in particular. While the initial RFP (XMI) addresses stream based meta data interoperability in object analysis and design domain, the submitters anticipate the XMI (in part because it is MOF based) to be rich enough to support additional domains. Examples include metamodels that cover the application development life cycle as well as additional domains such as data warehouse management and business object management. OMG is expected to issue new RFPs to cover these additional domains. The submitters expect this version of the XMI to evolve in the future to address new requirements."
"The adoption of the UML and MOF specifications in 1997 was a key step forward for the OMG and the industry in terms of achieving consensus on modeling technology and repositories after years of failed attempts to unify both areas. The adoption of XMI is expected to address the plethora of proprietary meta data interchange formats and minimally succesful attempts of the Meta Data Coaltion (Meta Data Interchange Specification) and Case Data Interchange Format (EIA CDIF) because of widespread adoption of W3C (XML) and OMG (UML, MOF) standards as well as industry pressures on integrated and interoperable development environments composed of tools from multiple vendors. XMI is also expected to ease the integration of CORBA, Java, and COM based development environments which are both evolving to similar extensible repository architectures based on standard information models, repository interfaces and interchange formats."
[June 12, 1998] On June 10, 1998, a proposal for "XML Metadata Interchange (XMI)" was submitted to the Object Management Group (OMG) by IBM, Unisys, Oracle, DSTC [Distributed Systems Technology Centre], and Platinum Technology. Other supporting companies include SELECT Software Tools, Sybase, Inline Software, and Rational Software. This proposal has been "created in response to developer's needs for standardized methods of sharing data, regardless of tool or programming language, in collaborative development environments. It aims to make Extensible Markup Language (XML) -- integrated with the OMG's Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Meta Object Facility (MOF) -- the cornerstone of an open information interchange model." The initial XMI proposal was drafted to meet the OMG's request for a stream-based interchange format (SMIF); as such, XMI data could be "stored on a traditional file system or streamed across the Internet from a database or repository." The submitters plan to formally present an XML Metadata Interchange Format specification at the OMG meeting in July 1998 (Helsinki). Standard DTDs are to be developed first for the exchange of information conforming to the UML and MOF (metadata) models; subsequent work may involve XMI specifications and DTDs for data-warehousing, component-based development, and web-based metadata. The designers expect to see XMI propoted as an open standrd in March 1999.
[December 24, 1998] The Ontogenics The Metadata Mediator project "has three primary goals: 1) creating a Web-based "mediator" utility for translating models to and from XMI; 2) prototyping a vendor independent XML representation for business rules; 3) UML extensions for integrating rules into the methodology and model repository." In particular, Ontogenics Corporation is "building on the proposed XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) standard that includes a full XML representation for UML, designing a standard, XML-based interchange language for business rules. This Rule Markup Language (RML) is designed as an extension to the XMI proposed standard, including appropriate integration with the Unified Modeling Language (UML) representation. A UML markup language is a part of the XMI proposal and is also an extension of the core metadata exchange definition. . . Our Repository Translation Service is a software tool that leverages the XMI language to translate common repository models between tools, or between repositories. The Repository Translator also includes Web-based model editors and model viewers that are built directly on the XMI representation, so these utilities can edit or view contents from many sources."
How Dr. Kerry Raymond put it: "In the hope of preventing yet-another thread entitled 'Won't XML replace XXX?' let me say at the outset that the UML and XML do completely different things, won't replace each other, but can be usefully combined to everyone's benefit. For the UMLers, XML is a way to interchange UML information, especially between different vendors tools. For XMLers faced with writing a very large and complex DTD, UML can be a methodology to design your information model. Then writing the DTD is a much simpler easy, whether you choose to automate the process (using the OMG's DTD design rules -- known as XMI or SMIF) or by hand." [CTX 1999年03月11日]
UREP, The Universal Repository "is a dynamic, extensible information system that defines, integrates and manages metadata and business data." From Unisys. See the December 1998 announcement: "Unisys Demonstrates XMI Interoperability Between UREP Universal Repository and Microsoft Repository. Use of XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) enables UREP to show heterogeneous, enterprise-wide interoperability among development tools, object repositories, and data warehouses."
References:
[February 24, 2000] "Upcoming OMG Meeting to Focus on Business Integration Issues." - "As the importance of online commerce and value-chain integration grows, so does the technology used to make them happen. The Object Management Group (OMG) establishes industry standards for technology solutions that impact a wide variety of industries -- from healthcare to manufacturing, telecommunications to finance, retail to transportation. Guests are welcome to attend the upcoming Object Management Group Technical Meeting Week in Denver, Colorado, USA, March 6-10, 2000, and learn how an open, vendor-neutral, consensus-building process is applied to set industry standards encompassing technologies such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), the Unified Modeling Language (UML), eXtensible Markup Language (XML), and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) which enable Enterprise Application Integration and E-Commerce. OMG specifications give you the ability to work with the technology you already have in place, along with the assurance that you'll be able to embrace technologies that come along tomorrow. In line with OMG's mission of enabling Enterprise Application Integration, the organization's specifications capitalize on the strength of multiple technologies, including eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for structured content, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for design, and CORBA/IIOP for platform and language neutral interoperability. XML is being used by OMG to represent configuration information for components (in the CORBA Component Model) and design metadata -- in the "XML Metadata Interchange Specification."
OMG Request For Proposal (RFP) [or, local archive copy]
"CORBA & XML Resource Page" - Links to OMG's XML activities and references to articles on CORBA/XML.
OMG TC Work in Progress - Stream-based Model Interchange [local archive copy, 1999年01月25日]; [local archive copy, 1998年10月08日]
Document ad/98-10-16. Data file for the XMI submission to the SMIF RFP -- UML.dtd. Revised submission, October 20, 1998. [local archive copy]
Document ad/98-10-15. Data file for the XMI Submission to the SMI RFP File MOF.DTD. Revised submission, October 20, 1998. [local archive copy]
Document ad/98-10-07. XMI SMIF Revised Submission -- complete submission including appendices. This document conbines ad/98-10-05 and ad/98-10-06. Contact: Mr. Stephen Brodsky. [local archive copy]
Voting on XMI [Vote Status: Stream-based Model Interchange]
[May 03, 2002] "Modeling XML Applications. Part 3." By Dave Carlson (Ontogenics Corp., Boulder, Colorado). In Software Development Magazine Volume 10, Number 5 (May 2002), pages 45-48. ['The XML Metadata Interchange specification standardizes metamodels, models and model instances among applications -- providing a consistent way to create XML schemas from models. Part 3 of 4.'] "When mapping between UML and XML Schema, the first priority is to enable generation of a valid XML Schema from any UML class diagram. The developer needs no knowledge of the XML Schema specification. Having this capability enables a rapid development process and supports reuse of the model vocabularies in several different deployment languages or environments, because the model isn't overly specialized to XML structure. To meet specific XML design guidelines, customization of the generated schemas must be supported. Several XML experts have told me that the generated schema must be the same as one they would write by hand. This may include choice of global versus local element declarations, or a preference for reusable <group> definitions in the schema context. However, the best hand-authored schemas still follow a consistent set of design principles that I intend to duplicate with UML-assisted design... I didn't start from scratch when creating these mapping rules, but used the XML Meta-data Interchange (XMI) specification from the Object Management Group (OMG) as a foundation. XMI standardizes the exchange of metamodels, models and object instances between applications. The standard is equally applicable to database meta-data and XML schemas, or to any other model that you might define for your application. Simply stated, XMI defines a consistent way to create XML schemas from models and XML document instances from objects that are instances of those models... The XMI specification is written in terms of the Meta Object Facility (MOF), the language used to define the UML metamodel -- essentially an abstract subset of the UML. For additional background on the MOF and XMI -- without jumping into the deep end of the conceptual pool -- I recommend reading the overview in section 2 of the MOF 1.3 specification, plus the design rationale in section 4 of the XMI 1.1 specification... Most common UML tools now support an XMI representation of their models. (The UML standard does not, however, completely define diagram graphics for interchange; stay tuned for UML 2.0, which will correct this deficiency.) Some tools, such as the open source ArgoUML, use XMI as their native file storage format... I envision an XML design tool that operates in loose collaboration with any UML tool that can import and export XMI representations of its models. I've used this XMI format of UML models to create a Web-based tool for bidirectional transformation between UML and XML Schema... In February 2002, Rational Software announced their new XDE UML product, which is integrated into the Eclipse framework. TogetherSoft and WebGain have also committed to support for Eclipse. I have integrated my XML Schema generation and reverse engineering tool into Eclipse; all of the schema examples in this article were generated using this tool... The fourth part of this series will describe techniques for reverse engineering an existing XML Schema into a UML model, again using the XMI representation as an intermediary to gain UML tool independence."
[May 03, 2000] XMI -> Doc: "You might want to read the thread on the different XMI flavors from the XMI mailing list that I posted at http://home.houston.rr.com/curta/xmithread/index.html" [Curt Arnold, 2000年05月03日]
[October 12, 2001] "XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). Response to the RFP ad/2000-01-04 for XMI Production of XML Schema." Joint Revised Submission by International Business Machines (IBM), Unisys, and SofTeam. OMG Document ad/2001-06-12. June 18, 20001. 164 pages. Send comments on this submission to xmi-rtf@omg.org. All questions about the submission should be directed to Stephen A. Brodsky, Ph.D., International Business Machines Corporation, +1 (408) 463-5659. ['This submission is an extension to the XMI 1.1 specification, ad/99-10-02.'] From the Introduction: "XMI is a widely used interchange format for sharing objects using XML. Sharing objects in XML is a comprehensive solution that build on sharing data with XML. XMI is applicable to a wide variety of objects: analysis (UML), software (Java, C++), components (EJB, IDL, Corba Component Model), and databases (CWM). Over 30 companies have XMI implementations. XMI defines many of the important aspects involved in describing objects in XML: (1) The representation of objects in terms of XML elements and attributes is the foundation. (2) Since objects are typically interconnected, XMI includes standard mechanisms to link objects within the same file or across files. (3) Object identity allows objects to be referenced from other objects in terms of IDs and UUIDs. (4) The versioning of objects and their definitions is handled by the XMI model. (5) Validation of XMI documents using DTDs and Schemas. XMI describes solutions to the above issues by specifying EBNF production rules to create XML documents, DTDs, and Schemas that share objects consistently. XMI 1.1 defines production two kinds of production rules for sharing objects with XML: [A] Production of XML DTDs starting from an object model, and [B] Production of XML documents starting from objects. In addition to generating XMI 1.1 compliant Schemas, we have produced a mapping for how XMI looks if we used new features in Schemas that are not available in DTDs. Based on these experiences, we can recommend a course for XMI as well as suggest improvements to XML Schema. This new form, called XMI 2.0, is a successor to the XMI 1.1 form. With the recent work by the W3C in XML Schemas, a more comprehensive form of XML document validator, this submission adds these production rules: (1) Production of XML Schemas starting from an object model; (2) Production of XML Documents compatible with XML Schemas; (3) Reverse engineering from XML to an object model. MOF is the foundation technology for describing object models, which cover the wide range of object domains: analysis (UML), software (Java, C++), components (EJB, IDL, Corba Component Model), and databases (CWM). XMI is applicable to all levels of objects and metaobjects. Although this document focuses on MOF metaobjects, general objects may be serialized and interchanged with XMI. The term 'XML document' in this specification is equivalent to a general stream of XML data..." Also in PostScript and .ZIP/PDF format; see the document listing. References: "UML to XML Design Rules Project." [cache PDF]
[November 07, 2001] "XMI and UML Combine to Drive Product Development. Ideogramic Suite Demonstrates UML-oriented XML Processing." By Cameron Laird (Vice president, Phaseit Inc.). From IBM developerWorks. October 2001. ['Countless organizations rely on UML (Unified Modeling Language) in the software development process. But software to manage UML itself has a well-earned reputation for being inflexible and difficult. This article describes how the Danish development house Ideogramic ApS extended XMI (an XML specification targeted at such metadata as UML), and explores both the benefits and limitations of "XMLization".'] UML (Unified Modeling Language) is a software modeling notation. That's generally taken to mean that UML practitioners don't start a software development project by writing computer programs. Instead, they talk, write notes on index cards, draw pictures, perform tiny technical dramas, criticize diagrams, and undertake other abstractions designed to lead to greater efficiency when it comes time to code. Typical UML 'work products' include class profiles captured on stacks of physical note cards, diagrams, and narratives called use cases that describe how users are expected to interact with the deliverable software product... These methods have proven to be well matched with human expressive patterns, but they do not lend themselves to the process of computerization. While it's possible to capture a whiteboard drawing digitally, it's generally an expensive operation, and the resulting datum is clumsy to transmit, version, archive, validate, and transform. The computing infrastructure is far better prepared to manage data in the form of source code, or the HTML that underlies this Web page. XML bridges part of that gap, by providing the building blocks for "serializing" UML data textually. XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) is an open industry standard that applies XML to abstract systems such as UML. Its method is to capture and express the relationships UML expresses, while discarding most of the visual details of a particular UML diagram. This partitioning into essential content and dispensable form enhances UML's manageability. This article studies the impact of XMI on a small development house, Ideogramic ApS. In particular, it looks at how the XML standard, and the growing sophistication of tools to integrate that standard with others on the market, has enabled one organization to focus on its own product development. XMI is a working example of the benefits of XML standardization. With XML as a base technology, organizations are encouraged to focus attention on their own unique products, trusting that an XML 'bus' will enable them to connect to processes and data in other organizations... In this article, I've shown how Ideogramic ApS exploits XMI to connect its Gesture Recognition product to Rational Software's range of UML products, thus enriching the use of both product sets for the developer community. I've also shown how Ideogramic has extended XMI to suit its particular objectives. In some cases, this extension has proven fairly simple and effective, in others it's both complex and partial. In either case, it seems clear that the effort has paid off for one small, highly innovative startup. Although both UML and XMI remain a bit incomplete, each is sufficiently mature to support successful commercial products, including Ideogramic's Gesture Recognition. And, as I believe this case study shows, the resulting implementation is much like any other XML engine and specific DTD-based application..."
[March 09, 2001] "Representing UML in RDF." By Sergey Melnik. "A testbed converter that supports automatic translation from UML/XMI to RDFS/RDF/XML is available. The UML community developed a set of useful models for representing static and dynamic components of software-intensive systems. UML is an industry standard and serves as a modeling basis for emerging standards in other areas like OIM, CWM etc. As of today there exist a variety of UML vocabularies for describing object models, datatypes, database schemas, transformations etc. The goal of this work is to make UML 'RDF-compatible'. This allows mixing and extending UML models and the language elements of UML itself on the Web in an open manner. XMI, the current standard for encoding UML in XML by OMG, does not offer this capability. It is based upon a hard-wired DTD. For example, if a third party were to refine the concept 'Event' defined in UML statecharts into say 'ExternalEvent' and 'InternalEvent', it would not be possible to serialize the corresponding event instances in XMI." [Referenced in the 'xmlschema-dev@w3.org' list: "I'd like to support your initiative. In addition to the applications you mentioned, I see UML as well-established schema language that can be used on the Semantic Web along with RDF Schema, XML Schema, DAML-O etc. Webizing UML allows leveraging a broad spectrum of tools and existing UML schemas. I while ago I took a crack at setting up UML on top of RDF and making it interoperate with other schema languages: http://www-db.stanford.edu/~melnik/rdf/uml/." This post from Sergey was in response to a message by David Ezell on a 'Proposed UML Interest Group.']
[June 14, 2000] "IBM and Rational Collaborate On Proposal For XMI-Based Data Interchange Specification To Streamline e-Business Development. Open Invitation For Software Tools and Server Vendors To Participate In And Adopt Specification Proposal." - "IBM and Rational Software today announced that they will submit a proposal for a data interchange specification to the Object Management Group (OMG), a vendor-neutral standards body. In addition, the two companies are inviting other software tools and server vendors to participate in and adopt this proposal. The specification recommends a standard way to use XML Metadata Interchange (XMI)-based information to optimize how application analysis tools such as performance, debugging and site analysis tools monitor e-business application quality, run-time and usage characteristics. XMI is an industry standard that combines the benefits of the web-based XML standard for defining, validating, and sharing document formats on the Web with the benefits of the object-oriented Unified Modeling Language (UML). It provides application developers with a common language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting distributed objects and business models. This standard way of interchanging data between application development tools allows teams of developers to work together, so they can use best-of-breed integrated development environments (IDEs) like IBM's VisualAge for Java and combine them with application modeling tools like Rational Rose, as well as application development tools from other vendors, with the assurance that they work together. IBM and Rational's specification extends the XMI definition previously submitted for tool-to-tool data interchange, and makes it viable for tool-to-application data interchange. One of the benefits of using XML to transmit data is that the data can be interchanged regardless of platform. This specification is complementary to all current IBM and Rational application development offerings. 'This new specification supports Rational's strategy to change software testing from an activity at the end of the deployment cycle to a continuous, real-time process that starts when the development life cycle does,' said Eric Schurr, senior vice president of Marketing and Suite Products, Rational Software. 'This will help customers build in quality from the beginning and determine how applications will run when they are deployed'."
[November 22, 1999] IBM's Updated XMI Toolkit. The most recent release of IBM's 'XMI Toolkit' now supports conversions between Java, Rational Rose, and UML models; it also includes an API to read and write XMI 1.0 files. One may use the XMI Toolkit to share Java objects using XML, to generate DTDs, and to convert designs and code between Java, UML, and Rational Rose. XMI (XML Metadata Interchange Format), from the Object Management Group (OMG) "specifies an open information interchange model that gives developers working with object technology the ability to exchange models and data over the Internet in a standardized way, thus bringing consistency and compatibility to applications created in collaborative environments. By establishing an industry standard for storing and sharing object programming information, development teams using various tools from multiple vendors can collaborate on applications. The new XMI standard allows developers to leverage the web to exchange data among tools, applications, and repositories, to create secure, distributed applications built in a team development environment. XMI defines two sets of generation rules for creating XML documents and XML DTDs. XML document generation specifies how to serialize objects into an XML stream. XML DTD generation specifies how to create a DTD that matches your objects from their class definitions. XMI is also used for interchanging design information and schemas. Standard XMI DTDs have been created for UML, MOF, CORBA (CCM), and are being standardized for Databases (CWM), Java, and Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). XMI has been endorsed by over 30 companies, and is available both in products by multiple companies as well as in freeware on the web. The [IBM] XMI Toolkit 1.05 is a refresh of the XMI 1.0 technology. A Reference Implementation of XMI, with source code, is included. For more information on XMI, please see www.software.ibm.com/ad/features/xmi.html."
[March 23, 2001] "Using XML/XMI for Tool Supported Evolution of UML Models." By F. Keienburg and Andreas Rausch (Institut für Informatik, Technische Universität München). In Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-34). Edited by: R. H. Sprague. With 19 references. Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society, 2001. Meeting: January 3-6, 2001. Maui, Hawaii. Abstract: "Software components developed with modern tools and middleware infrastructures undergo considerable reprogramming before they become reusable. Tools and methodologies are needed to cope with the evolution of software components. We present some basic concepts and architectures to handle the impacts of the evolution of UML models. With the proposed concepts, an infrastructure to support model evolution, data schema migration, and data instance migration based on UML models can be realized. To describe the evolution path we use XML/XMI files." Details: "One needed important thing for delivering transparent model changes is a neutral model specification format. For reasons of currently becoming a respected standard and being adopted by a lot of UML Case Tools vendors, XMI is chosen in this architecture as a neutral exchange format between different Case Tools. In addition there is a explosion of tools for handling XML documents very comfortable. The XMI standard specifies with a Document Definition Type (DTD), how UML models are mapped into a XML file. Besides this functionality XMI also specifies how model changes can be easily mapped into an XML document. Therefore XMI is a very good solution for solving some of the requested requirements for UML model evolution... XMI specifies a possibility for transmitting metadata differences. The goal is to provide a mechanism for specifying the differences between documents in a way that the entire document does not need to be transmitted each time. This is especially important in a distributed and concurrent environment where changes have to be transmitted to other users or applications very quickly. This design does not specify an algorithm for computing the differences, just a form of transmitting them. Only occurring model changes are transmitted. In this way different instances of a model can be maintained and synchronized more easily and economically. The idea is to transmit only the changes made to the model together with the necessary information to be able to apply the necessary changes to the old model. With this information you have the possibility for model merging. This means you can combine difference information plus a common reference model to construct the appropriate new model. A important remark to this topic is that model changes are time sensitive. This means changes must be handled in the exact chronological order for achieving the wanted result... In this paper we have shown that modern middleware infrastructures for the development of distributed applications provide rich support for model based development and code generation. But there is almost no support in case of model evolution. We have introduced some concepts and architectures to realize a tool supporting model evolution and data migration and to integrate this tool in modern infrastructures. To specify the model evolution the developer should use an XMI based difference description. Based on this concepts we have already implemented a first prototype. This is a very primitive version but it is already integrated in our framework AutoMate. Based on this experience we have realized the new version of the tool called ShapeShifter. ShapeShifter is now a stand alone tool supporting model evolution and data migration on top of Versant's object-oriented database. With ShapeShifter you specify the model difference in XMI and the model and the database are automatically migrated. ShapeShifter is now used in a first industrial project. The next step will be a complete integration in a CASE tool. Currently one can export and import XMI model files from some CASE tools. But for a full integration of ShapeShifter we need more sophisticated tools to generate the XMI difference file from to XMI based model versions. Moreover we plan to integrate ShapeShifter into several Enterprise Java Beans Container." Paper also available in Postscript format. [cache]
[July 23, 1999] Earlier this month, the IBM alphaWorks XML application development team released an XMI Toolkit, allowing users to convert UML models into XML and DTDs. "The XMI Toolkit 1.0 is the first release of XMI technology. The Toolkit is a Java component that converts UML information between Rational Rose Models and XMI-standard XML files. XMI can also generate new DTDs directly from your models. A Reference Implementation of XMI, with source code, is included, and runs on all Java Platforms. . . XMI (XML Metadata Interchange) specifies an open information interchange model that gives developers working with object technology the ability to exchange models and data over the Internet in a standardized way, thus bringing consistency and compatibility to applications created in collaborative environments. By establishing an industry standard for storing and sharing object programming information, development teams using various tools from multiple vendors can collaborate on applications. The new XMI standard allows developers to leverage the web to exchange data among tools, applications, and repositories, to create secure, distributed applications built in a team development environment. . . Here's a common [usage] scenario. A business analyst makes a business model using an OOAD design tool using the UML (Unified Modeling Language) standard. The design is expressed in XMI and used by a software developer in his language IDE. Next, reports and documentation are published on the web, generated from the XMI. By accessing the design in XMI, database schemas and data warehouses may be created by database designers and business intelligence analysts. With XMI, users are able to focus directly on their roles, working as a team in an open, distributed environment. Users can employ the right products for each role and interchange their designs in XMI using the Internet. Using XMI opens up entirely new paths between tools, allowing customers to choose which tools work best in their distributed environment. A customer can choose modeling tools, IDEs, repositories, and databases based on each product's individual merits. Vendors and ISVs win because their best-of-breed solutions can work with the customer's extensive infrastructure." Steve Brodsky is IBM's representative and chairs the XMI RTF; Kevin Poole is the product manager for the XMI Toolkit. Users may participate in the XMI standard by joining the XMI Revision Task Force and subscribing to the XMI RTF mailing list xmi-rtf@omg.org.
[January 21, 2000] " Rational Offers Unisys XMI Software for Rational Rose 2000." - "Unisys Corporation today announced an agreement with Rational Software that will enable Rational to provide the Unisys implementation of the XMI (XML Metadata Interchange) specification for its customers' use in exchanging information between the new Rational Rose 2000 visual modeling environment and other UML (Unified Modeling Language)-based tools and environments. The Unisys XMI software is available immediately for customer download from the Rational Web site. Through Unisys XMI software, Rational Rose 2000 users will be able to interchange information with other development and planning tools at a much finer level of detail than ever before. This capability will enable enterprise customers to build an application infrastructure that improves their capability to conduct high-volume electronic business in heterogeneous, multivendor environments... Unisys and Rational worked closely together on XMI technology during the process of defining the XMI specification. When the XMI specification was submitted to the OMG for approval, the two companies collaborated on a dramatic demonstration of how disparate development tools and environments can interoperate using XMI. Details of the demonstration can be found on the OMG Web site at http://www.omg.com/news/pr99/transcript.doc." ["Rose XMI Support: XMI (XML Metadata Interchange) is an OMG standard for the interchange of UML information between tools. XMI support gives Rose users the capability to save a model in XMI format and to open an XMI model. This download is available, free of charge, to all Rose customers, independent of Rose edition. Any Rose customer can use this in exchanging information between the new Rational Rose 2000 visual modeling environment and other tools and environments that require XMI. (It also supports Rose 98i, sp1). It is fully supported by Rational Software Corporation. If any problems are encountered with this software, please contact Rational Customer Support at 1-800-433-5444 or email support@rational.com. This XMI implementation for Rose was developed to integrate with Unisys tools and environments like UREP, but it is well suited for general use as it covers the entire UML."]
[March 30, 1999] Simon McBride (Distributed Systems Technology Centre DSTC, University of Queensland) has announced a new public forum for discussion of the OMG's XML-based Metadata Interchange specification (XMI). The forum at xmi@dstc.edu.au is one of two Meta-Object Facility (MOF) Related Mailing Lists hosted by DSTC. The second mailing list, at mof@dstc.edu.au, "provides a forum for discussion on the MOF specification, products and prototype implementations, meta-modeling and any other topic relevant to the Meta-Object Facility.
[April 16, 1999] XMI study notes. By Ann M. Wrightson (Senior Lecturer in Information Systems, University of Huddersfield). These materials are part of a collection of 'XML study notes' prepared for postgraduate students upport class-based and independent study at the School of Computing and Mathematics at the University of Huddersfield. [local archive copy]
[April 13, 1999] "OMG Meeting In Philadelphia Sees Significant Enhancement to UML." - "The Object Management Group recently concluded its Technical Meeting week in Philadephia, Pennsylvania, USA, co-hosted by Genesis Development Corporation, Unisys, and Nihon Unisys. Over 500 OMG members met to work on some 100 technologies in process. The five-day meetings are intended to provide a forum for the OMG members and their guests to meet and carry out the standards-setting process that extends existing Object Management Architecture specifications such as CORBA and UML with new technologies. Over the next five weeks, authorized OMG members will vote on various technologies presented to the Platform and Domain Technology Committees. All of the technologies presented for vote are expected to pass, and will be offered to the OMG's Board of Directors before or during the group's August meeting for final approval. Once approved, each will become an official OMG specification. During the last OMG Board or Directors' meeting, five new technologies were approved. These new specifications include the Interoperable Naming Service, the XML-based Model Interchange Facility (XMI), the Security 1.5 revision, the Telecom Log Service, and the Display Manager for Air Traffic Control."
[May 06, 1999] "A Universal Repository Architecture Using UML and MOF. Spanning Platforms by Addressing Semantic and Object Interoperabilities." By Sridhar Iyengar (Unisys). In Component Strategies (May 1999), pages 38-52 (with 29 references) [Database and Legacy Integration]. "Universal repositories unify three technologies: object modeling, distributed objects, and metadata repositories. Modeling and repository technologies (UML and MOF) address semantic interoperability, while distributed object technologies (COM and CORBA) address object interoperability. This article highlights some of the key trends affecting the complexity of development and runtime environments, and then describes the general need for and use of universal repositories for the integration of tools and applications in a distributed development environment. Also highlighted are the importance of an extensible information model and layered information model architecture, as well as support for multiple language interfaces, and the importance of database, OS, and object middleware technology independence as key aspects of a universal repository. Interoperability and convergence among these diverse eforts is a challenge. While the infrastructure technologies (CORBA and COM) are divergent, consensus on metamodels such as UML, which the industry is supporting unanimously (Microsoft included), is a step in the right direction. The same needs to happen with additional metamodels and business models. The increased use of XML in the industry and the potential of MOF/UML integration are key trends to watch."
[July 19, 1999] "Objects by Design - Transforming XMI to HTML." By Stuart Zakon. 'Tutorial on using XSL to transform XMI (XML for UML) into HTML'. "In this project we will be demonstrating how to use the newly introduced XSL stylesheet technology to transform XMI documents into HTML. Our purpose is to be able to display an object-oriented design in a web browser. XMI is an XML-based, stream representation of a UML model which has the potential to allow models to be shared between different UML tools. Since XMI is a relatively new part of the suite of UML standards (March, 1999), support for this standard will appear gradually over the course of this year. For a discussion on the future role XMI can play in the O-O development process, please see our criteria for choosing a UML modeling tool. There are a number of new, evolving technologies discussed in the sections which follow. Links to documents describing these technologies are provided at the end of this page for further research. The reader will benefit by delaying the navigation of these links until after the presentation of our design."
[April 19, 1999] "[Component Front] OMG Announces XMI Specification." By John K. Waters. In Component Strategies (April 1999), page 9. Brief description of recent announcements from OMG.
[January 25, 1999] MOF/XMI Update January 1999 - Paul Denning
[February 05, 1999] A recent from the Object Management Group reports on the recent movement of the XMI specification through OMG's Technology Adoption process and on the current vote by the OMG membership. "OMG Members Unite in Support of XMI Technology. Consensus Brings Implementation a Step Closer." - "Unisys, IBM, Oracle, Platinum, Fujitsu, Softeam, and Daimler-Benz are just some of the many vendors who are collaborating on the Object Management Group's new XMI (XML Metadata Interchange) specification. Other supporters include Rational, Sprint, Sybase, Xerox, MCI Systemhouse, Boeing, Ardent, ICONIX, Integrated Systems, Verilog, NCR, and NTT. XMI is a new open industry standard that combines the benefits of the web-based XML standard for defining, validating, and sharing document formats on the web with the benefits of the object-oriented Unified Modeling Language (UML). It provides application developers with a common language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting distributed objects and business models." See also 'What the Industry is Saying About XMI' and 'An Overview to the XMI - XML Metadata Interchange Specification."
[November 11, 1998] XMI Presentation: (November 11, 1998). XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). Revised Proposal to OA& DTF RFP - 3. Stream based Model Interchange Format (SMIF). Co-Submitters: Unisys, IBM, DSTC, Oracle, Platinum, Fujitsu, Softeam, Reccerca, Daimler-Benz. Supporters: Cayenne, Genesis , Inline, Rational, Select, Sprint, Sybase, Xerox, MCI Systemhouse, Boeing, Ardent, Aviatis, ICONIX, Integrated Systems, Verilog, Telefonica I+ D, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, NCR, Nihon Unisys, NTT. OMG TC Meeting, Burlingame : November 11, 1998. Sridhar Iyengar: Sridhar.Iyengar@mv.unisys.com; Steve Brodsky: sbrodsky@us.ibm.com. [local archive copy]
[January 27, 1999] "The OMG Initiates Votes on 5 New Technologies. XMI and Air Traffic Control Specifications Top the List of Technology Adoptions." - "The Object Management Group recently concluded its Technical Meeting week, which was sponsored by Concept Five Technologies in Washington, D.C. Almost 600 OMG members met to work on some 90 technologies in process. Over the next five weeks, authorized OMG members will vote on various technologies presented to the Platform and Domain Technical Committees. All of the technologies presented for vote are expected to pass, and will be presented to the OMG's Board of Directors at the group's March meeting for final approval. The Platform Technology Adoption votes initiated include a revision to the existing OMG specification for CORBA Security, an Interoperable Naming Service that provides a common methodology for supporting naming conventions from multiple vendors, including Internet names, and an XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) specification that enhances a standard methodology for exchanging object-oriented programming data over the Internet."
[February 05, 1999] XMI Specification Press Kit - referenced in the 1999 OMG Press Releases document.
[January 13, 1999] "OMG's Meta-data Exchange Spec to be Put to a Vote." By Cara Cunningham. In InfoWorld (January 12, 1999). On Wednesday [1999年01月13日] at the Object Management Group's (OMG's) technical meeting held [in Arlington, VA], a team of vendors plan to submit for approval the XML Metadata Interface (XMI) specification that aims to facilitate the sharing of meta data between tools and repositories. The XMI specification will be submitted to OMG's Object Analysis and Design task force on Wednesday, according to Sridhar Iyengar, object evangelist at OMG member Unisys, in Mission Viejo, Calif. If the specification passes this group, it will be voted on by the OMG's Architectural Board, and subsequently by all OMG members for final approval, which is expected within eight to 10 weeks. XMI unites the Extensible Markup Language (XML) with the OMG's Universal Markup Language (UML) and Meta Object Facility (MOF) so meta data can be described in UML, stored in MOF, and exchanged among tools and repositories via XML, according to OMG officials." See "Object Management Group (OMG) and XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI)" for more information.
XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). Proposal to the OMG OA&DTF RFP 3: Stream-based Model Interchange Format (SMIF). Reference: OMG Document ad/98-07-01, July 6, 1998. A Joint Submission from Cooperative Research Centre for Distributed Systems Technology (DSTC), International Business Machines Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Platinum Technology, Inc., Unisys Corporation; supported by: Cayenne Software, Genesis Development, Inline Software, Rational Software Corporation, Select Software, Sprint Communications Company, Sybase, Inc. Available in Postscript and PDF formats. [local archive copies: ps, pdf]
XML Metadata Interchange. Appendices. Proposal to the OMG OA&DTF RFP 3: Stream-based Model Interchange Format (SMIF). Reference: OMG Document ad/98-07-03, July 6, 1998. This document (90 pages) represents three appendices. Appendix A provides the UML 1.1 DTD (a DTD generated by hand that represents the UML metamodel). Appendix B contains a DTD generated by hand that represents the MOF model which is described in Section 3 MOF Model and Interfaces of the MOF 1.1 specification. The third Appendix provides two extremely simple UML models and their resultant XML encoding. The first is an example of a model containing a class which contains an attribute. It is encoded in XMI using the UML DTD. The second is a Business Model - developed as the source for a simple XML document produced according to XMI. The XML resulting from this model is shown. The document OMG Document ad/98-07-03 is available in Postscript and PDF formats. [local archive copies: ps, pdf].
[December 09, 1998] CORBA and XML - By Kerry Raymond
XMI submission documents are also available from DSTC Meta-Object Facility Publications Page. SMIF initial submission , SMIF initial submission appendicies.
Table of Contents for XML Metadata Interchange (XMI), ad/98-07-01.
Examples from OMG Document ad/98-07-03.
"Discussion of MOF, OMG and XML and XMI." - By Sridhar Iyengar (Unisys Fellow, Unisys Corporation) July 30, 1998. [local archive copy]
[June 12, 1998] "IBM and Unisys Lead Effort To Formalize Industry Standard For Streamlining Collaborative Software Development. New Standard Will Make Web-based Programming More Consistent." [or, local archive copy]
Presentation by Sridhar Iyengar on the XML specification proposed to the OMG. OGM TC Meeting Orlando, June 10, 1998. Powerpoint, 29 slides. [local archive copy, 980612]
[June 12, 1998] <XMI> "XML Metadata Interchange" </XMI> - An OMG SMIF Proposal - Information on XML from IBM. [local archive copy, 980612]
OMG Home Page - Information on Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Meta Object Facility (MOF).
[November 03, 1998] Post from Stephen Crawley: "XMI Final Submission Available."
[January 30, 1999] "XMI Builds the Bridge for Object Developers." By Brian Ploskina. In ent [Online] Volume 4, Number 2 (January 20, 1999), page 14. "For those who dream of programmers, developers and all others who work with object technology living in perfect harmony, that day isn't so far off. IBM Corp., Unisys Corp. (www.unisys.com), Oracle Corp. and other leading software vendors and end-users presented the final proposal of the XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI), an industry standard designed to streamline collaborative application development efforts on the Web. The proposal was submitted to the Object Management Group (OMG, www.omg.org), an object technology standards body, at the group's annual member meeting in November. XMI is intended to give developers working with object technology and using a diverse set of tools, even ones from different vendors, the ability to exchange programming data over the Internet in a standard method. With the widespread support it's receiving, XMI aims to make XML (eXtensible Markup Language), integrated with the OMG's Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Meta Object Facility (MOF), the best option for an open information interchange model." For more information on XMI, see "Object Management Group (OMG) and XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI)."
[November 11, 1998] "IBM, Unisys and Oracle Lead Initiative on Industry Standard for Collaborative Web-based Software Development. Companies Advance Final Proposal to Formalize Standard; Demonstrate Product Prototypes." - ". . .[November 11, 1998] presented the final proposal of an XMI - XML Metadata Interchange Format] industry standard to streamline collaborative application development efforts on the Web. . . also demonstrated how disparate development tools and environments can interoperate using the new specification." [local archive copy]
[December 09, 1998] "XMI Demonstration and Examples." - "At the OMG meeting in Burlingame in November 1998, IBM, Oracle and Unisys hosted a live demonstration of XMI interchange between a number of tools: IBM VisualAge, Oracle Repository, Unisys UREP and Select." [documents, local archive copy]
[November 23, 1998] "XMI Puts Component Modelers on the Same Page ." By Antone Gonsalves. In PC Week [Online] (November 23, 1998). "IBM, Oracle Corp. and Unisys Corp. are attempting to solve conflicts developers face when trying to move resources between a variety of tools by implementing a new interoperability standard. In a recent demonstration at an Object Management Group meeting in Burlingame, Calif., the three companies demonstrated the use of the XMI (Extensible Markup Language Metadata Interchange) specification in moving a design model for a component-based application between a variety of tools. The OMG is expected to adopt the XMI specification in the first quarter of next year."
[November 03, 1998] "XMI to Enable Component Sharing." By Antone Gonsalves. In PC Week [Online] (November 02, 1998).
[June 12, 1998] "XML Gets a Boost from Powerful Allies." By Antone Gonsalves. In PC Week Online (June 11, 1998) 8:01 AM PT. Excerpt: "A group of major software vendors today proposed that the Object Management Group adopt XML as the standard for exchanging programming data over the Internet. The proposal, submitted in outline form at an Orlando, Fla., meeting of the standards body, targets Extensible Markup Language as the cornerstone of an open information interchange model. Under the proposal, XML would be used as the standard for exchanging data between tools, applications and repositories-a major benefit within team development environments."
[June 13, 1998] "New Spec Leverages XML For App Development." By Richard Karpinski. In CMPNet TechWeb News (June 12, 1998) 12:21 p.m. ET. "Thursday [June 11, 1998], a group of vendors led by IBM, Unisys, and Oracle submitted to the Object Management Group a proposal to use XML to share application data, regardless of the tool, programming language, or repository, in collaborative development environments. . ."
[June 22, 1998] "XML Builds Momentum as Repository Standard." By Paul Krill. In InfoWorld Volume 20, Issue 25 (June 22, 1998), page 6. Also in InfoWorld Electric. "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) will become the standard mechanism for interoperability between data-warehouse and tool repositories, based on plans by vendors such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle. These companies and others, such as Unisys, are examining XML as a way to standardize data entries for inclusion in repositories. [. . .] This month IBM, Unisys, Oracle, and Platinum Technology submitted to the OMG the XML Meta Data Interchange Format (XMI) proposal for XML communications between development tools, applications, and repositories." Also on "Common Warehouse Model [which] expands XMI to include meta-data interchange between warehouse repositories and tools."
[September 14, 1998] "Sybase Licenses UNISYS Universal Repository. Repository Simplifies Management of Enterprise Development Life Cycle." - "UREP implements industry-standard models and services such as the Object Management Group's UML (Unified Modeling Language), MOF (Meta Object Facility), and XMI (XML Metadata Interchange), further advancing Unisys commitment to support industry standards." [local archive copy]
Contacts for the XMI submission: Sridhar Iyengar (Unisys) and Stephen Brodsky (IBM).
XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) - Information from the Open Information Interchange 'Metadata Interchange Standards' Page. Maintained by Martin Bryan of The SGML Centre and Man-Sze Li of IC Focus on behalf of European Commission DGXIII/E.
Compare: UML-Xchange from Normand Rivard, 07-09-98. "UML-Xchange is a SGML DTD for exchanging data models between CASE tools that use the UML language. All of the six kinds of UML diagrams are supported." See the DTD, [local archive copy]
Compare: "UML eXchange Format (UXF)"
Initial Submissions from Fujitsu/Softeam and Daimler-Benz/Informàtica
Initial Submission to the SMIF RFP [CDIF Partners Submission], from Fujitsu and Softeam, with collaboration and support from Ardent Software, Aviatis, Boeing, ICONIX, Integrated Systems, Verilog. Version 1.0 beta. OMG PTC Document ad/98-07-09. In Response to OMG RFP - ad/97-12-03. July 6, 1998. In text format; also available in PDF, Postscript, RTF, etc. Excerpt: "2.4.2 XML and CDIF Use Cases. There are three basic use cases for SMIF transfer streams: 1) model interchange within a virtual team separated by space, 2) model interchange between projects separated by time and space, and 3) model interchange of vendor specific extensions. XML is well suited for the first case. CDIF is well suited for the 2nd and 3rd use cases. To use XML to satisfy these last two use cases, mature and stable architectural specifications need to be provided. Importers need to understand the SMIF transfer stream contents without relying on side agreements with the exporter. The Extended Markup Language (XML) technology is a very desirable option for model interchange in a controlled context. Project agreement on a Document Type Definition (DTD) for a meta-model facilitates high-fidelity model interchange for the project. However, this approach is labor intensive to maintain across projects and is error prone when the DTD is separated from the transfer stream and is updated over time." [local archive copy]
On July 6, 1998, Recerca Informàtica and Daimler-Benz Research and Technology presented a submission to the OMG ad/97-12-03 RFP: Universal Object Language 1.2 Specification. References: [OMG Document: ad/98-07-07] Version 1.2 /T-UOL-19980707 July 7th, 1998. "The objective of this submission is to specify the Universal Object Language (UOL) and its companion XML-DTDs as the Stream-based model interchange format. Another goal of this proposal is to allow publishing in the XML format parts of a repository. Given the importance of XML, the availability of many tools and products based on XML and the reasonable need to make the repository accessible in this format we have developed the necessary DTDs for UOL. UOL is a human readable format that allows representing MOF and UML models in a very compact way and easily learnable and usable by any person. The companion XML-DTDs allows publication of UOL in an industry standard format and facilitates its use by all XML supporting tools." Chapter 1.2.1.4 "justifies the need of an XML representation of UOL and describes the mapping between UOL and XML with DTDs giving several examples." Despite the advantages of XML (recognized by the UOL designers), XML was not proposed as a direct answer to the SMIF RFP, because: "1) XML has not been developed to be used heavily by humans without specific tools and, therefore, is not adequate for generic human to tool and human to human communication; 2) Software engineers would not accept XML as a round-trip engineering language because it is too cumbersome to use without syntactic editors." The submission in in two parts, the second being appendices: Part 1 and Part 2. Local copies, PDF: Part 1, Part 2. Postscript versions are also available: Part 1, Part 2. See the examples.
Primary Contacts for the UOL submission: Joan M. Moral Joan M. Moral (Recerca Informàtica) and Mario Jeckle (Daimler-Benz Research and Technology). The most recent updates of the Universal Object Language can be found at: http://www.recercai.com. (For example: http://www.recercai.com/uol1_2a07.zip).
