[gme-users] association-like notation

[Thompson, Robert C]

Supposing you have a class C1 and a class C2 and an association A1
between them, and you want to make an "association class" named "AC"
that "hangs on" to A1, you can do the following:

1) Define a new atom in your metamodel called "Bind" or "Knot" or
something like that.  Giving it an icon that looks like a little dot
will make the visualization of this look better.

2) Break your original Connection defining the association A1 into two
connections: A11 and A12.  A11 should be between C1 and your "Bind"
atom.  A12 should be between "Bind" and C2.  

3) Define a new atom/model in your metamodel called "AC", and define a
connection "ACBind" between "Bind" and "AC". You might want to give this
connection a "dashed" look in the properties.

3.5) I've left out all of the aspect stuff and other things you'll need
to make instances of these guys visualizable in your model.

4) Now, in your model, you can create in a model an instance of C1, an
instance of C2, an instance of "Bind", and an instance of "AC".  You can
connect the C1 and C2 instances to the "Bind", and the "Bind" instance
can be connected to the "AC" instance.   The last connection will have a
"dashed" look if you set it up right in #3 above, which will make it
look like an assocation-class type of thing... AC is your association
class instance.

You'll notice that it all ends up looking just like the mechanism for
creating Connections in the GME metamodel (i.e., you have a little dot
that you hook up the two "endpoints" to, and a third item that hangs off
of the dot with a different looking connector line).

Does this suit your intent?

Regards,
-ace
Ace Thompson
Systems and Software Engineer
FCS LSI C4ISR Battle Command
robert.c.thompson3 at boeing.com
+1 480 891 2284
The Boeing Company


-----Original Message-----
From: Manfred Heckler [mailto:manfred.heckler at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 2:03 PM
To: gme-users at list.isis.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: [gme-users] association-like notation

Hello again,

Yes, I could use an attribute for the connection. However, I'd like to
use more than that.

Meanwhile, I figured out, how to define an association with a connection
itself and some other object in the meta model. But when I try to attach
an object to the connection (in the model), like I would do between
objects, that doesn't work, because the connection line does not provide
a connection point, which could be used for linking.

Nonetheless, I will use attributes, if nothing else is around for such
notation.
Thanks for your comments.

On 27/08/05, Molnar Zoltan <zolmol at isis.vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> You can define an attribute for the connection, in the metamodel, and 
> if you'd like that attribute value can be shown on the connection line

> itself. (Details about the trick to show an attribute's value on a 
> connection to come later.)
> 
> Br, Zoli
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