plantuml-doc

XML Metadata Interchange (XMI)

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Many users ask for XMI support in PlantUML. So the -xmi flag has been added in the command line (and in the ANT task also), for betatesting. This is only working with class diagrams.

As explain on the Modeling Portal, XMI theoretically allows to interchange data between programs.

So let’s have a very simple example, with three classes:

@startuml
class class1 {
  field
}
class1 - class2
class2 - class3
@enduml

Imagine that you can have a XMI file that can be imported successfully on several UML tools. It would be nice.

Unfortunately, having the very same file is difficult. For example,

• On StarUML, you have to use testStarUML.xml
• On ArgoUML, you have to use testArgoUML.xml If someone manages to have an identical file that would work on both tools, please post it there : you will have a free licence of PlantUML :-)

So, they are actually 3 flags:

• -xmi : only classes are exported, without any relationship. This is very basic but should work with on many tools
• -xmi:argo : to be read by ArgoUML
• -xmi:star : to be read by StarUML Please note that this is an alpha version, and that many things will probably not work. You should use the forum to ask for corrections.

Update: now this feature is in production and is invoked as follows:

• -txmi:argo : to be read by ArgoUML
• -txmi or -txmi:star : to be read by StarUML

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