Meta Modelling

By Dr. Horst Kargl Trainer, Consultant and Author, Sparx Systems Central Europe

How to succeed with your modelling approach. This workshop will talk about Metamodel Constraints in EA and how they can be solved with extensions of available features.

Session Recording

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Sparx Systems Central Europe

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Questions and Answers

Metaconstraint very useful - thanks. What was that extension you just showed called and where's it available from? The one that allowed a new element to be assigned to be an existing element?

The extension I was using will become part of the Modelling Assistants, you can find them here:
https://www.sparxsystems.de/partnerprodukte/modelingassistants/
But the parts I have showed are currently not released

For your additional constraints, can it be expressed in OCL?

It is possible to write OCL rules and EA will check the syntax of these OCL rules, but the OCL rule is not applied on the model in order to proof it. This is what you can do with the EA API. With additional Extensions and when you use C# as language, you can get really close to an OCL syntax.

Will an API based implementation of a constraint be active during modelling (e.g. the tool will tell the connection is invalid), as well as during validation?

Both is possible, if you write model validation rules and implement the call back functions from the Model Validation Example, the validation impl is triggered from the Validation Engine but you can also implement other call back functions like contextItemModified or PostNewConnector or PreNewConnector in order to validate the model on the fly

Now I better understand the relationship between model, meta model, meta meta model and even how to use in the real life. This is a professional way how to keep model at the good level of quality. I can imagine how useful can be in forward engineering approach, where the whole life cycle of solution is coming from initial idea, lot of model artifacts and finishing with some executable. There are a lot of transformations and the quality of source have to be forced. I can imagine it, I haven't met in my projects yet. It is amazing!

Yes, working on a modelling approach is essential in order to keep the models alive and valid!

Can the various ArchiMate architecture sub models in Sparx be adapted/specialized in the same way as you demonstrated for UML?

Yes, you can extend any existing Profile. My suggestion is to also use View Specification instead of new Diagram Types in order to get the same graphical representation of the existing modelling language. I will show an example in Part 2 of "How to succeed with your modelling approach"

I look forward to part 2. Will it be openly accessible?

It will be hosted as public presentation in the Webinar Series of Sparx Systems HQ.

Is it possible to define metaconstrains to say the stereotyped attribute can only be placed on a specific stereotyped element?

Yes, this should also be possible with the help of owner constraint and ownedAttribute constraint.

Please provide more details on the extension you use to identify same-type elements for easier reuse.

I have used a pre-release of the modelling assistants:
https://www.sparxsystems.de/partnerprodukte/modelingassistants/

Can you use compartments with related Element with this way of defining connectors for your MDG or profile?

Yes, with the help of adapted shape scripts this is possible.
https://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/15.1/modeling/add_custom_compartments_to_ele.html

Speaker Bio

Dr. Horst Kargl

Trainer, Consultant and Author, Sparx Systems Central Europe

Dr. Horst Kargl, Trainer, Consultant and author, has been working with OO-modelling since 2000, joining SparxSystems in 2008. His focus is on software architecture, code generation and the customization and extension possibilities of Enterprise Architect.