Copyright © 2011-2020 Model Driven Solutions, Inc.
Alf is an action language for UML developed in response to the OMG Concrete Syntax for a UML Action Language Request for Proposals. The Alf specification document can be found at http://www.omg.org/spec/ALF. (See also http://solitaire.omg.org/issues/task-force/ALF11 for the list of issues addressed by the Alf 1.1 Revision Task Force.)
This implementation is based on the Alf 1.1 specification. It compiles Alf source text to the executable Foundational UML (fUML) subset of UML. The compilation can target either of two fUML execution engine implementations:
The implementation handles the full Alf syntax at the Extended compliance level, as given in Annex C Consolidated LL Grammar of the Alf Specification.
Static semantic checking is directly based on validating the constraints defined in the abstract syntax of the Alf Specification. However, as errors were discovered in these definitions, or inconsistencies with corresponding feature descriptions were identified, these were corrected in the implementation. All such issues have either been corrected in the latest version of the specification or have been reported to the Alf Revision Task Force for correction in a future version.
The latest version of the implementation is available at http://alf.modeldriven.org.
Model Driven Solutions, Inc., (formerly Data Access Technology, Inc.) is copyright owner of the source code for this implementation.
For licensing terms, see the file LICENSING.txt.
The latest packaged distribution of the implementation is available in the
dist
directory.
Within this directory, the file alf.zip unzips into the installation directory for Alf.
The installation directory includes Unix (BASH) shell scripts and DOS batch files for running Alf.
By default, the Libraries subdirectory is expected to be in the same directory as the scripts.
If you move it, set the environment variable ALF_LIB to its path.
The following sections describe the project structure and build steps for the implementation. For further information on using it, see the wiki.
The base implementation source is organized into the following Eclipse projects. The build is currently tested on Eclipse 2020-06 (4.16).
org.modeldriven.alf - This is the base project, including the
Alf parser, static semantic checking and generic mapping to fUML.
The generic mapping is not dependent on any specific UML metamodel or fUML implementation,
but it must be extended with a specific UML metamodel implementation in order to generate
actual UML model output.
org.modeldriven.alf.fuml.impl - This project extends the base
project to specialize the mapping to target the fUML Reference Implementation
and to allow compiled Alf text to be executed. It does not depend on the
fUML Reference Implementation project directly but, rather, uses an exported
fuml.jar file.
org.modeldriven.alf.eclipse - This project extends the base
project to specialize the mapping to target the Eclipse UML2
metamodel implementation (v5.2.0 or later). It depends on Eclipse plugins and must be built in an Eclipse environment.
org.modeldriven.alf.eclipse.moka - This project extends the
org.modeldriven.alf.eclipse project to allow compiled Alf text to be executed
using the fUML execution engine from the Moka framework
for model execution in the Eclipse Papyrus modeling tool (specifically v3.1.0).
It depends on Eclipse plugins and must be built in an Eclipse environment. (Note: This project was called
org.modeldriven.alf.eclipse.papyrus in previous versions of the reference implementation.)
org.modeldriven.alf.tests - This project provides automated tests.
The project structure under Maven allows building the regular Java modules and the Eclipse-based modules (using Tycho).
./master/pom.xml - a module that provides standard configurations to be shared by all modules, including the root module../pom.xml - the parent module for the regular Java modules./org.modeldriven.alf - see Projects above../org.modeldriven.alf.fuml.impl - see Projects above../org.modeldriven.alf.tests - see Projects above../org.modeldriven.alf.bundle - produces a OSGi-bundle from org.modeldriven.alf./org.modeldriven.alf.fuml.impl.bundle - produces a OSGi-bundle from org.modeldriven.alf.fuml.impl./tycho-pom.xml - a convenience module that can be used for performing the Tycho (OSGi) aware part of the build. Equivalent to building ./tycho-parent/pom.xml./tycho-parent/pom.xml - the parent module for the Tycho/Eclipse modules./org.modeldriven.alf.eclipse - see Projects above../org.modeldriven.alf.eclipse.moka - see Projects above.mvn clean install -f mastermvn clean installmvn clean install -f tycho-pom.xmlBy downloading the Eclipse SDK, you should have all those components.
That is the simplest way to import the codebase into Eclipse.
alf-ri.target definition you just importedAlternately, you can import the code as Maven modules, which is recommended to obtain a configuration that is consistent with how the Maven build operates on the codebase.
alf.eclipse and alf.eclipse.moka projects,
as they are not modules for the base Maven build).
Note: If you see a build problem with the message "Duplicate bundle executions found. Please remove any explicitly defined bundle executions in your pom.xml.",
make any non-content change to the POM file and save it, which should make the error go away.tycho-parent directory and all its children artifacts as "Existing Maven projects".alf-ri.target definition you just imported