RE: Patches submitted for Bug 303744 UML Class changes

["Dave Klotzbach" <dklotzbach foxvalley net>]

After re-reading your response, I see that there is a problem of
nomenclature. There does exist in UML the concept of a Note or Comment. This
is represented by a graphic that appears to be a page with the corner folded
down. Documentation tags can apply to elements of the model and are rendered
differently.
Since this discussion is taking place on the mailing list, let me explain
further so that all know what is being discussed. An element in UML is
anything that can be treated as an atomic constituent of a model. So while a
class icon is an element, so to are the name, attributes and operations of a
class icon. Documentation (what has been called a comment in Dia's
implementation of UML) can be associated with any element. This include such
things as association and generalization linkages as well. 
So, if one were to add a comment to a diagram, it would be done using the
Note icon. The note Icon is the third icon on the UML sheet and has the word
TEXT in it. This is not the same as the comment field in the class dialog,
which is more correctly called the documentation.
It is unfortunate, that the specification for UML 1.3 which is available on
the www.uml.org web site does not clarify this. There are sections which
discuss these very generally, Section 2.5.2.15, 2.6.1 and 3.17 as well as an
example of tagged values in general in figure 3-17. However "The Unified
Modeling Language User Guide" does explain it more clearly in Appendix B.
Where the specification is vague, I depend on this book for clarification
since it was written by the three originators of the UML modeling language. 
Until you have a chance to get a copy let me quote the relevant paragraph:
"In most cases, a tagged value is rendered by placing the tag name and its
value below the name of the element to which it is attached and enclosing
the tagged value in braces, as in {location = client}. Tags with long text
values may be rendered in a separate compartment at the bottom of the
classifier's icon."
I have searched the latest specifications as well as UML 1.3 upon which the
book is based and can not find any text the describes how the tagged values
are to be rendered.
One further note, the UML example in CVS, has several errors in it when
examined against the spec and the documentation and should not be used as a
reference except at the most casual level 

-----Original Message-----
From: dia-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:dia-list-bounces gnome org] On
Behalf Of Lars Clausen
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 1:57 PM
To: discussions about usage and development of dia
Subject: RE: Patches submitted for Bug 303744

On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 11:49 -0600, Dave Klotzbach wrote:
> I also corrected the way the comment are displayed. In UML comments 
> are to be displayed as {documentation = ...} tags. With these patches 
> dia now does this correctly for UMLClass objects.
...
> The specification for UML are covered in general in the book "The 
> Unified Modeling Language User Guide" by Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh 
> and Ivar Jacobson. It only covers UML 1.0, but I was going to make UML 
> compliant with that before tackling UML 2.0. You can find out more 
> about UML 2.0 at http://www.uml.org/

The newest UML 2.0 specs I can see appears to be
http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/apps/doc?formal/05-07-04.pdf which defines
comments as being in separate Note objects.  The oldest specs available
there (1.3, at http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/apps/doc?formal/00-03-01.pdf)
don't define anything like that either.  I've also never seen anything like
it in any of the UML examples I've seen.  Maybe I should get the book.

-Lars

--
Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>

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