TextualRepresentation

TextualRepresentation is defined in KerML specification on page 108. Excerpt from the machine readable specification:

A TextualRepresentation is an AnnotatingElement whose body represents the representedElement in a given language. The representedElement must be the owner of the TextualRepresentation. The named language can be a natural language, in which case the body is an informal representation, or an artificial language, in which case the body is expected to be a formal, machine-parsable representation.

If the named language of a TextualRepresentation is machine-parsable, then the body text should be legal input text as defined for that language. The interpretation of the named language string shall be case insensitive. The following language names are defined to correspond to the given standard languages:

kerml

Kernel Modeling Language

ocl

Object Constraint Language

alf

Action Language for fUML

Other specifications may define specific language strings, other than those shown above, to be used to indicate the use of languages from those specifications in KerML TextualRepresentation.

If the language of a TextualRepresentation is “kerml”, then the body text shall be a legal representation of the representedElement in the KerML textual concrete syntax. A conforming tool can use such a TextualRepresentation Annotation to record the original KerML concrete syntax text from which an Element was parsed. In this case, it is a tool responsibility to ensure that the body of the TextualRepresentation remains correct (or the Annotation is removed) if the annotated Element changes other than by re-parsing the body text.

An Element with a TextualRepresentation in a language other than KerML is essentially a semantically “opaque” Element specified in the other language. However, a conforming KerML tool may interpret such an element consistently with the specification of the named language.

The following diagram shows the inheritance hierarchy of TextualRepresentation according to the specification:

// Class: TextualRepresentation
digraph {
TextualRepresentation [label="TextualRepresentation (KerML)" shape=plaintext]
AnnotatingElement -> TextualRepresentation
AnnotatingElement [label="AnnotatingElement (KerML)" shape=plaintext]
Element -> AnnotatingElement
Element [label="Element (KerML)" shape=plaintext]
}

The following table shows all attributes defined for TextualRepresentation according to the specification together with the documentation from the machine readable specification. Note that in SysIDE API, we use snake case for attribute names instead of Pascal case used in the specification.

Attribute	Documentation from machine readable specification
Attributes defined in `TextualRepresentation`:
`body`	The textual representation of the `representedElement` in the given `language`.
`language`	The natural or artificial language in which the `body` text is written.
`represented_element`	The `Element` that is represented by this `TextualRepresentation`.
Attributes defined in `AnnotatingElement`:
`annotated_elements`	The `Elements` that are annotated by this `AnnotatingElement`. If `annotation` is not empty, these are the `annotatedElements` of the `annotations`. If `annotation` is empty, then it is the `owningNamespace` of the `AnnotatingElement`.
`annotations`	The `Annotations` that relate this `AnnotatingElement` to its `annotatedElements`. This includes the `owningAnnotatingRelationship` (if any) followed by all the `ownedAnnotatingRelationships`.
`owned_annotating_relationships`	The `ownedRelationships` of this `AnnotatingElement` that are `Annotations`, for which this `AnnotatingElement` is the `annotatingElement`.
`owning_annotating_relationship`	The `owningRelationship` of this `AnnotatingRelationship`, if it is an `Annotation`
Attributes defined in `Element`:
`declared_name`	The declared name of this `Element`.
`declared_short_name`	An optional alternative name for the `Element` that is intended to be shorter or in some way more succinct than its primary `name`. It may act as a modeler-specified identifier for the `Element`, though it is then the responsibility of the modeler to maintain the uniqueness of this identifier within a model or relative to some other context.
`documentation`	The Documentation owned by this Element.
`element_id`	The globally unique identifier for this Element. This is intended to be set by tooling, and it must not change during the lifetime of the Element.
`is_implied_included`	Whether all necessary implied Relationships have been included in the `ownedRelationships` of this Element. This property may be true, even if there are not actually any `ownedRelationships` with `isImplied = true`, meaning that no such Relationships are actually implied for this Element. However, if it is false, then `ownedRelationships` may not contain any implied Relationships. That is, either all required implied Relationships must be included, or none of them.
`is_library_element`	Whether this Element is contained in the ownership tree of a library model.
`name`	The name to be used for this `Element` during name resolution within its `owningNamespace`. This is derived using the `effectiveName()` operation. By default, it is the same as the `declaredName`, but this is overridden for certain kinds of `Elements` to compute a `name` even when the `declaredName` is null.
`owned_annotations`	The `ownedRelationships` of this `Element` that are `Annotations`, for which this `Element` is the `annotatedElement`.
`owned_elements`	The Elements owned by this Element, derived as the ownedRelatedElements of the ownedRelationships of this Element.
`owned_relationships`	The Relationships for which this Element is the owningRelatedElement.
`owner`	The owner of this Element, derived as the `owningRelatedElement` of the `owningRelationship` of this Element, if any.
`owning_membership`	The `owningRelationship` of this `Element`, if that `Relationship` is a `Membership`.
`owning_namespace`	The `Namespace` that owns this `Element`, which is the `membershipOwningNamespace` of the `owningMembership` of this `Element`, if any.
`owning_relationship`	The Relationship for which this Element is an ownedRelatedElement, if any.
`qualified_name`	The full ownership-qualified name of this `Element`, represented in a form that is valid according to the KerML textual concrete syntax for qualified names (including use of unrestricted name notation and escaped characters, as necessary). The `qualifiedName` is null if this `Element` has no `owningNamespace` or if there is not a complete ownership chain of named `Namespaces` from a root `Namespace` to this `Element`.
`short_name`	The short name to be used for this `Element` during name resolution within its `owningNamespace`. This is derived using the `effectiveShortName()` operation. By default, it is the same as the `declaredShortName`, but this is overridden for certain kinds of `Elements` to compute a `shortName` even when the `declaredName` is null.
`textual_representations`	The `TextualRepresentations` that annotate this `Element`.