System and method for developing and enabling model-driven XML transformation framework for e-business

Abstract

A system and method for developing and enabling model-driven extensible Markup Language (XML) transformation to XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) format incorporate a strong built-in validation capability. A platform independent framework applies multiple passes of transformation, where each pass performs specific operations on internal models. Different source models are then merged into a target model.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention generally relates to creating and editing business models and, more particularly, to a system and method using a pre-defined internal meta-model to classify business activities into several types of management components and govern all types of business operations. The invention provides a general model driven translation approach that can facilitate code re-use and yet enforce a built-in validation capability.[0003]2. Background Description[0004]As eXtensible Markup Language (XML) formats have been widely adopted for representing business documents both within and across enterprises, XML to XML translation becomes a common and critical component for business process integration. Script-based approaches usually include a fixed translator, and translation methods are coded inside style sheets or annotated schemas. Document Object Model (DOM) tree-based approaches provide fixed sets of tree traversal...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]The invention thus defines a simplified XML schema, so that observation models based on the new human readable format can be easily composed using XML editing tools or even text editors. Since observation manager runtime can only accept XMI models, there is still needed an XML to XMI translation utility. Due to the limitations of other approaches, the invention provides a model driven development framework for building such a utility. This approach implements a strong built-in validation capability in that validation logic is embedded into the code. Once the model is instantiated and populated, it is guaranteed to be a valid in-memory model that conforms to the meta-model.

[0008]Since XMI itself is an XML document, XML to XMI translation can be viewed as a variant of XML to XML translation. However, XML to XMI translation is more rigid due to the fact that the schemas for serialized models in XMI are loosely defined (with a data type ANY in the XMI schema to allow any conceptual models in arbitrary structures). For example, models in XMI format have flattened structures that may include parsed mathematical formulas and logical expressions. Extra model conformance and validation checks are needed to ensure a valid model.

Problems solved by technology

However, there are limitations for these approaches.

The XML Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) approach can not guarantee that the translated XML documents will conform to a complicated schema, thus requiring an extra validation stage.

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