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8 Glossary

Area
A repository is composed of areas, each corresponding to a project. Each area has its own set of files in a subdirectory of the repository’s ‘areas’ directory.
Browsers
Tools for inspecting and editing design and method elements by project: Type Browser, Graph Browser, Metamodel Browser.
Decomposition
A link from an object to a graph representing the contents of that object. Each object may have at most one decomposition.
Default project
Project in which new graphs and types will be stored. New graph representations and design elements are automatically stored into the same project as their graphs.
Design element
Any conceptual design information in MetaEdit+: a graph, object, relationship, role, or property.
Editor
Modelling tool that allows you to specify the contents of a graph: Diagram Editor, Matrix Editor, Table Editor.
Explosion
A link from an object, relationship or role in a certain graph to another graph. A given object, relationship or role can have several explosions in a given graph, and a different set of explosions in another graph.
Graph
Graph is a conceptual design element that contains objects, relationships and roles. Graphs can be represented as diagrams, matrices or tables.
mcc project
Project in the standard repository, which includes types common to several methods. Hence, the ‘mcc’ project forms a reuse library for metamodelling.
Metamodel
Specifications of a method, also model of a method.
Model
Corresponds to a graph. Models can be represented as graphical diagrams, matrices, or tables.
n-ary relationship
A relationship that has more than two roles.
Object
A design element that can exist on its own in a graph; e.g. a class or an entity.
Patch file
A file with .pat extension. There are two type of patches; a database patch for importing methods and models from another repository, and an image patch for filing in updates to the MetaEdit+ image (program). Users can make database patches with the Type or Graph Manager; image patches can only be made by MetaCase Consulting.
Project
A group of models and/or metamodels that are used together. Corresponds to an area in the repository. In the standard repository each method has its own project (written with capital letters) and users can create their own projects for storing models.
Property
A design element that characterises other design elements, e.g. the name of a class. A property is often just a string, but may also contain one or several design elements.
Property sharing
A reuse approach for sharing a property value between two or more design elements, e.g. an attribute name ‘customerID’ can be used as both an attribute of a class and an attribute of an entity.
Relationship
A design element that connects objects through roles; e.g. inheritance or message between objects.
Report
Specification for generating code, documentation etc. from graphs; also such generated output.
Repository
A database consisting of models and methods organised into projects.
Role
A design element that connects relationship and objects; e.g. subclass or ‘owner’ role in an aggregation structure.








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