Modelling is made in an interactive user-friendly graphic interface.

The designer can organize the graphic representation of his model in a set of diagrams (class diagrams or state diagrams). A diagram is a representation of an object model subset.

Diagrams can be connected with hypertext links offering so an interactive navigation very similar to that offered by a web browser. It is possible to comment/highlight a diagram with free graphs and textual notes. Diagrams can be printed or be integrated within the other documents by way of the clipboard.

UML Standard

UML (Unified Modeling Language) is the standard notation defined with the OMG (Object Management Group) to specify an object model. UML does not prefigure the implémentation to come. UML is now the standard on the whole market.

D•OM integrates a big part of this notation, in particular, aggregations, stereotypes and dependency links.

Among the set of diagrams proposed in the UML standard, D•OM uses the class diagrams and the state diagrams. Only these two types of model are useful for code generation. The other types of diagrams defined by UML, (use cases, diagrams of sequences, …) are only usefull at the analysis phase. However they will be available in following versions.

Model semantics

D•OM associates a very precise semantics in the object model :

• All attributes have strong types ( G-string,   Integer, Float, Boolean, Date, enumerated …),
• The object behavior is specified in a concise and declarative way : the D•Script language.
• The state diagrams allow to describe the life cycle of objects.

A D•OM object model is coherent, precise and not ambiguous. There is only one possible interpretation of a model.

State diagram sample :

The executable prototype, generated from the object model, includes all the model semantics and, so,  allows its validation. This makes of D•OM the ideal tool to design very complex systems which can be checked from the conception.

Once confirmed prototype, this even semantics will be preserved during the automatic application source code generation in the target language; application will have the samel behavior as the prototype.

This guarantee of the same behavior invites the designer to detail its model object and insures a model driven development.

Model object remains reference throughout the application life cycle.

Control of coherence

The coherence of the model is verified permanently, due to an active cross references system.

• Inheritance rules are applied after any modification of the model.
• The validity of the D•Script code is verified from its input but also during every evolution of the model. The change of the type of an attribute, for example, provokes the check of all the operations using this attribute in their source.
• Diagrams are updated automatically when the represented elements are modified.

It is also possible to navigate from an element to other one of the model by following cross references, this is very useful to know who is using such attribute or such association or to show the various specializations of an operation.

The advantages of this permanent control of the coherence are:

• the mastery of complex object models,
• the easy study of the model evolution impacts,
• a better understanding of models.

Package oriented modelling

D•OM offers the possibility of structuring model object in various packages. Every package corresponds to a part of the model, it has an interface which defines its usage. It groups all the information concerning itself: documentation, notes,  object models, ...

The notion of package proposed by D•OM offers numerous advantages:

• The package allows sharing and re-use of software bricks between projects,
• The package is the configuration management unit, D•OM allows to work on a given configuration of packages and controls its coherence,
• Every package is developed in successive versions,
• Teamwork is simplified. A developer modifies one or several packages. When finished, he gives it or them to the other developers throught the project repository. A package can be modified only by one developer at the same time.

D•OM is available on various platforms (Unix and Window). The data sharing is total because of the common storage format, no conversion is necessary from a platform to the other one.

Exchange of UML models : XMI Standard

D•OM has a mechanism to import or export an UML model in the  XMI format. This mechanism allows to share models developed with other case tools.

So, It is possible to use D•OM as a supplement to another case tool and to take advantage of its unique capabilities for building prototype and generating code.

Model documentation

D•OM is able to associate a documentation annotation with any entity of the model. This one is structurated into paragraphs and different character styles. It is also possible to define documentation templates.

The documentation is generated from the object model and documentation annotations. The possible output formats are HTML or RTF (Rich Text Format).

The automatically generated HTML documentation fully use the hypertext capabilities of the HTML language.

Technical characteristics

D•OM V3 is available both on Windows platforms and on the main Unix platforms : Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX. The minimal requirements for Windows is Pentium 100 MHz with 64 Mo of memory. The installation requires 20 Mo on disk.
 

(c) Atos 2000, last modification of this page : january, 4th 2001