Despite my doubts about the immediate utility of XML schemas
generated from UML representations of business models, I've
wondered for a while now whether UML might not be a useful way to
represent the information models expressed by XML schemas; a lot
of people seem to like this form of visualization. Maybe we could
generate UML models of all the xCBL 3.0 schemas for the benefit of
people who like to work this way. Such a capability might also
help convey input from UBL to the Core Components work. Dave
Carlson has been looking at XML to UML conversion recently and is,
at my request, willing to share his work with us at the upcoming
UBL meeting in Menlo Park.
Our agenda for the plenary meeting 29 October calls for a UBL
Group wind-up from 10 to noon and then an OASIS UBL TC meeting
from 2 to 5 p.m. The room we're meeting in is directly above a
cafeteria, so I thought it might work out well to schedule Dave
for the main meeting room from 12:30 to 2 and let everyone
who's interested bring lunch back upstairs from the cafeteria to
hear him. If enough people want to continue the discussion when
Dave's done with his presentation, we'll schedule a breakout
session on tools for one of the days devoted to committee
meetings.
Below is the title and abstract of the talk Dave will be giving us
29 October. You can find the updated meeting agenda at:
http://oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/200110/agenda.pdf
Jon Bosak
Chair, UBL Group
Designated Chair, OASIS UBL TC
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Extracting UML Conceptual Models from Existing XML Vocabularies
Dave Carlson, 29 October 2001 at the UBL Meeting in Menlo Park
This talk will review specific examples of reverse engineering
UML conceptual model diagrams from several xCBL SOX modules,
e.g. Catalog, Order, TradingParty, and Auction. The goal of
this prototype work is to extract an accurate vocabulary
structure that is independent of the schema implementation
language. The resulting UML models can be more easily
reviewed, refined and submitted as an initial library of ebXML
Core Components.