UML22 — Repr. of applied stereotypes and their properties insufficiently described

Issue: UML representation of applied stereotypes and their properties is
insufficiently described
Nature: Clarification
Severity: Significant
Summary:

1. In the Superstructure spec 2.1.1, it is not clearly stated what an
applied stereotype is in terms of metaclasses. The spec talks
about "instance of a Stereotype", but it fails to sufficiently
clarify the so-called meta-level crossing, i.e. the fact that an
instance of the Stereotype metaclass at the same time is a new
metaclass. The description of Stereotype says in the Semantics
section: "An instance “S” of Stereotype is a kind of (meta) class
". I think "a kind of" as well as putting "(meta)" in parenthesis
is confusing. I suggest to say: "An instance “S” of the Stereotype
metaclass is itself a metaclass.". Also, the text currently does
not describe what the name and particularly the namespace of the
metaclass corresponding to the instance of the Stereotype
metaclass would be. Because of the current uncertainty, UML tools
have taken different (and incompatible) interpretations on how an
applied stereotype should be represented in terms of UML
metaclasses.

2. It is not described currently how any property values of applied
stereotypes are represented in terms of instances of metaclasses.
When looking at generated XMI, it seems that this representation
is quite different from Property metaclass instances that are
ownedAttributes of user model classes, so there is a need to
clarify this. Because of the current uncertainty, UML tools have
taken different (and incompatible) interpretations on how these
values should be represented in terms of UML

No Data Available