Re: UML (Was: Ada to C++ translator?)

[Ray Blaak <blaak@infomatch.com>]

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"Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> writes:
> "Frode Tenneb�" <frodet@nvg.org> wrote in message news:ddo969.8qa.ln@leia...
> : And if it can do Ada -> UML -> Ada, why should it not manage
> : Ada -> UML -> C++ (or more desireable, C++ -> UML -> Ada)?

One of the realities of modeling in UML is that you can never become completely
independent of the target language.

For example, one tends to name things using the style of the target language
(e.g Do_Something vs DoSomething vs doSomething), and one tends to use when
necessary the primitive types of the target language for attribute types,
return and parameter types (e.g. Integer vs int, empty return type vs "void").

E.g. a UML method destined for Ada might look like this on a UML diagram:

  Do_Something(Right_Now : Integer)

for Java:

  doSomething(rightNow : int) : void

The types especially are the real problem. As the primitive types vary from
language to language, and as UML does not have any such primitive types, there
is no standard with which a code generator or reverse engineering tool could
automatically translate things.

Other nits: default parameters (Java doesn't have them, Ada and C++ do),
overall UML representation (C++ and Java use classes almost exclusively, Ada,
technically speaking has only packages, types, and routines -- the class
structure in UML for Ada has to follow some sort of convention), target
language types that don't map to UML (e.g. Ada's array types also need to have
some sort of convention to map them on to UML classes).

All these things directly affect the contents of the UML model, and the
conventions of representing UML for one language does not necessarily or even
usually apply to the conventions for another language.

The best you can do (and I have done this myself) is to reverse engineer into
UML, and run some sort script on the UML model to translate the primitive types
and conventions over.

--
Cheers,                                        The Rhythm is around me,
                                               The Rhythm has control.
Ray Blaak                                      The Rhythm is inside me,
blaak@infomatch.com                            The Rhythm has my soul.