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Does anyone know if there's a usable tool for generating RUP-style artifacts from a UML model in the rational toolset (i.e. Rational Software Architect, App Developer etc)?

Specifically, I need to be able to extract information from class (and potentially sequence) diagrams and create software design documents, preferably using Word (or maybe PDF).

I've tried BIRT and its just not usable. Is there anything else out there that is?

Thanks

Steve
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2 Answers2

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Haven't used it for a few years but SoDA used to be the main way to generate docs with Rational tools. It wasn't free back then, not sure about now.

That's the only 'out of the box' doc generator I know of. However you should be able to use some/most of the eclipse modelling tools to roll your own by extracting model info into some intermediate format and then generating docs. So, for example, you could:

  • Use xtend2 to extract model info and write as restructured text files
  • Use sphinx to generate html or pdf from the .rst files.

hth.

sfinnie
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  • Yeah, I used SoDA many years ago with Rose and early versions of RAD. Unfortunately, SoDA has been end-of-lifed by IBM, so is no longer being sold. In any case, SoDA was never updated to be able to read the XMI-based models maintained by RSA, so I couldn't use it even if it were still available. I'm not sure how the xtend2 thing would work, since I've not used it. Do you know if there's an example of this type of usage? From what I've (admittedly briefly) read, it looks more like xtend2 is a language for the JVM, I'm not real clear on how I sould use it to extract modeling info from RSA. – Steve Apr 19 '12 at 14:57
  • Yes, xtend is being positioned more now as a general purpose programming language. However it's heritage was as part of model-driven framework (openarchitectureware). There's a tutorial on writing code generators with xtend here (http://www.eclipse.org/Xtext/documentation/2_0_0/040-first-code-generator.php). Key features are (1) ability to iterate over EMF models, and (2) rich strings for doing text generation. It doesn't limit the text you can generate - hence suggestion of generating RST... – sfinnie Apr 19 '12 at 15:06
  • ...Note I'm assuming here there's an API for accessing RSA models - either via the standard eCore API or a proprietary one. hth. – sfinnie Apr 19 '12 at 15:06
  • There is such an API; EMF/UML2 with some proprietary additions. – Uffe Apr 20 '12 at 04:40
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There is the Rational Publishing Engine.

I'm not sure how closely this resembles either BIRT or SoDA, whether it's a rehash or a from-scratch implementation or what, but it's what's supported by IBM at the present time.

I have no first-hand experience with it, but I have a colleague who does and he seems to like it.

Uffe
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