Chapter 4 Managing Profiles

Extended Collections (Profile)

An extended collection allows you to associate multiple instances of one metaclass with an instance of another. For example, you can associate multiple column objects with a table. When you create an extended collection in a metaclass, its property sheet will contain a tab with the name of the extended collection.

This feature is useful when you want to create additional collections on existing metaclasses, and can also help you manage new kinds of objects like extended objects or extended links. For example, to attach documents containing use case specifications to the different packages of a model you can create an extended collection in the package metaclass and define FileObject as the target metaclass.

You can also use extended collections to complement the definition of an object using other objects. For example, you can create an extended collection on the process metaclass that shows the OOM components used as resources to the process, this allows you to have a more accurate vision of the physical implementation of the process.

When you define an extended collection, the metaclass it references is displayed like a new list of objects in the property sheet of the parent metaclass, and the parent metaclass is displayed in the Dependencies tab of the target metaclass.

Steps To create an extended collection:

  1. Right-click a metaclass, stereotype, or criterion and select New→Extended Collection.
  2. Enter a name in the Name box. This name will be used as the name of the related tab in the object property sheet.
  3. [optional] Enter a comment and an inverse name.
  4. Select a metaclass in the Target Type list to form the basis of the collection.
  5. [optional] Select or enter a stereotype to further refine the instances of the target metaclass that may appear in the collection.
  6. Click Apply or OK to save your changes and return to your model.

    You can view the tab associated with the collection by opening the property sheet of a metaclass instance. The tab contains Add Objects and Create an Object tools, which allow you to populate the collection.

    Note that if you create an extended collection on a stereotype or criterion, the corresponding tab is displayed only if the metaclass instance bears the stereotype or meets the criterion.

 

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