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  1. OMG Issue

UMLR — Message wildcards appear to ignore operation default values

  • Key: UMLR-370
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Change Vision ( Michael Chonoles)
  • Summary:

    Operations may contain a list of Parameters, which are defined in 9.4.4.

    Parameters may an '= <default>' to specify the default value for that parameter.

    However, in Messages, argument wi/o values are given wildcard values, representing any legal value.

    A wildcard could be representing the default value, but as described, it appears that it need not be – it can be ANY legal value.

    This means that it is impossible to specify a message that uses the default values of a parameter wi/o making them explicit. This makes the specification of default values to operation parameters not applicable to messages. This seems unintended. (If intended, then it is wrong)

    The discussion of message wildcards should indicate that (at least for input arguments), an unspecified value or wildcard will use the parameter default.

    If this is somewho intended the specification needs to be explicit and come up with a way of making the default values useful.

  • Reported: UML 2.5 — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 20:05 GMT
  • Updated: Fri, 6 Mar 2015 20:57 GMT