The Metabase: Generating Object Persistency Using Meta Descriptions

Because of its language independent metamodel FAMIX, the Moose environment allows researchers to analyze software systems in a uniform way and to exchange data and results. To support interoperability, different interchange file formats such as XMI, CDIF, and recently MSE, have been proposed and used. The use of text files, to exchange data, has three major issues: (1) the files containing the model of a system should always be parsed before being used in Moose, (2) the files must be parsed entirely, even if only a small part is needed, and (3) compatibility is a concern since the old interchange formats are no longer supported in recent versions of Moose. We propose an alternative approach for FAMIX data exchange, based on object persistency. FAMIX models are stored in a database in a transparent way and they can be remotely accessed. Model entities are retrieved from the database “on-demand”, i.e., only the parts needed are read and not the entire model. The mapping between Smalltalk objects and database rows is automatically generated from a meta description, which does not limit the approach to the FAMIX meta model, but to any meta model defined by a meta description.