Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) is an
Eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event which occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ...
-based
modeling framework and
code generation facility for building tools and other applications based on a structured
data model
A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be ...
.
From a model specification described in
XML Metadata Interchange (XMI), EMF provides tools and runtime support to produce a set of Java classes for the model, a set of adapter classes that enable viewing and command-based editing of the model, and a basic editor. Models can be specified using annotated
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
,
UML,
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
documents, or modeling tools, then imported into EMF. Most important of all, EMF provides the foundation for interoperability with other EMF-based tools and applications.
Ecore
Ecore is the core (meta-)model at the heart of EMF. It allows expressing other models by leveraging its constructs. Ecore is also its own metamodel (i.e.: Ecore is defined in terms of itself).
According to
Ed Merks, EMF project lead, "Ecore is the defacto reference implementation of
OMG's
EMOF" (Essential Meta-Object Facility). Still according to Merks, EMOF was actually defined by OMG as a simplified version of the more comprehensive 'C'MOF by drawing on the experience of the successful simplification of Ecore's original implementation.
Using Ecore as a foundational meta-model allows a modeler to take advantage of the entire EMF ecosystem and tooling - in as much as it's then reasonably easy to map application-level models back to Ecore. This isn't to say that it's best practice for applications to directly leverage Ecore as their metamodel; rather they might consider defining their own metamodels based on Ecore.
See also
*
Acceleo, a code generator using EMF models in input
*
ATL, a model transformation language
*
Connected Data Objects (CDO), a free implementation of a
Distributed Shared Model on top of EMF
*
Generic Eclipse Modeling System
Generic Eclipse Modeling System (GEMS) is a configurable toolkit for creating domain-specific modeling and program synthesis environments for Eclipse. The project aims to bridge the gap between the communities experienced with visual metamodeling ...
(GEMS)
*
Graphical Modeling Framework
The Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF) is a framework within the Eclipse platform. It provides a generative component and runtime infrastructure for developing graphical editors based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) and Graphical Edit ...
(GMF)
*
List of EMF based software
*
Model-driven architecture
*
Xtext
Xtext is an open-source software framework for developing programming languages and domain-specific languages (DSLs). Unlike standard parser generators, Xtext generates not only a parser, but also a class model for the abstract syntax tree, as ...
References
External links
EMF project page
Eclipse (software)
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