jCleanCim readme

jCleanCim is an open source tool for validation and documentation generation from Enterprise Architect UML models of IEC TC57 CIM and IEC61850 UML models.

Up until end of 2015 it has been hosted by the CIM Methods & Tools for Enterprise Integration group on the CIM Users Group web site, with access limited to the CIM and IEC61850 users community members only.

To make it accessible also to non-CIMug members, since 2016, I decided to share it as a full open source tool and host it at my web space.

This is a non-GUI Java application and the Java code is fully platform independent. However, it unfortunately must be run on MS Windows machine due to the usage of Enterprise Architect and MS Word automation libraries (.dlls).

(Old release notes)

Documentation

Once you unzip a jCleanCim distribution, doc directory contains the full documentation. The important parts of the source code are documented and that documentation is generated as so-called javadoc - namely, a set of web pages that allow for easy navigation.

Which distribution should I download?

jCleanCim is available in two distributions, depending on how you want to use it.

Even if you have a 64-bit Windows OS, ensure you install a 32-bit Java (JRE: runtime) or SDK (software development kit) and have it appear on your PATH before the potentially already installed 64-bit Java, because Enterprise Architect is still a 32-bit application and requires a 32-bit Java. See the commented text in the run.bat script.

Distribution User kind Prerequisites Installing
Binary distribution jCleanCim-[version]-bin.zip Run jCleanCim from the console (cmd.exe).
  • 32-bit Java 7+ runtime (JRE). To verify whether you already have it installed, open the console window and type java -version
  • Enterprise Architect build 834+ (version 7.1+)
  • (optional: to run doc generation) MS Word 2003+
Unzip the distribution anywhere on your file system; it will uncompress in its own directory tagged with the version so there is no danger of overwriting an older installation. For example, using WinZip, select "Extract to here" command.
Source distribution jCleanCim-[version]-src.zip Run jCleanCim from the console (cmd.exe) or from within eclipse.

Develop and build it with Apache ant or with eclipse.

  • 32-bit Java 7+ software development kit (SDK). To verify whether you already have it installed, open the console window and type javac -version
  • Something to compile the code and create executable, e.g.:
    • Apache ant 1.7.1+. To verify whether you already have it installed, open the console window and type ant -version.
    • or an IDE if you are already a Java developer.
  • Enterprise Architect build 834+ (version 7.1+)
  • (optional, runtime: to run doc generation) MS Word 2003+
  • (optional, during ant build: to build javadoc with UML for any distribution, and to document ant build targets dependencies graph) GraphViz application. To verify whether you already have it installed, open the console window and type dot -version

Same as for binary distribution (jCleanCim-[version]-bin.zip).

If used with eclipse, start eclipse SDK and after unzipping, use Import ->Existing project and browse to the unzipped directory.

Note: This is the most flexible option if you are developing, as you can have the eclipse project anywhere on your disk (not necessarily in an eclipse workspace).

Note for source distribution (and if you need to create the distribution yourself): Ant build file contains targets that invoke GraphViz application for creation of graphical elements for the documentation (UML-enhanced javadoc, and javadoc in pdf format). If you do not have GraphViz installed on your local system, these targets will be just skipped during the build (even if you get exceptions from the doclet, the javadoc gets generated, just without the UML diagrams). However, if you want to produce jCleanCim distributions, you should install GraphViz in order to have nicer documentation.

Dependencies

To be self-contained, jCleanCim distributions bundle relevant third party open source/distributable libraries. Java jars are in the project's lib directory, and MS Windows dlls are in the dlls directory.

The following libraries are packaged with all the distributions of jCleanCim:

The following libraries are packaged only with source distribution of jCleanCim:

Performance indicators

Since we talk to EA and to MS Word through their automation APIs, the model building (as a first step in the application) and the MS Word document generation (if enabled) take time:

Java processing - for validation, statistics calculation and documentation collection from in-memory model to pass to the actual writer (s), as well as XML document generation for web-access - takes a couple of seconds for all the models and scenarios tested.

Hints

Here items thay may be considered as issues (but will likely not be addressed soon) and performance-related advice, so please take them into account when running jCleanCim:

Configuration documentation

For an overview of all configuration options, once you have unpacked the release into your local directory, this link to the javadoc documentation should work: Config. You can access the same page from your installation subdirectory doc/api/index.html, by selecting from the class list the class Config .

Disclaimer

Starting with release 02v00, jCleanCim has been licensed under the terms of GNU LGPLv3 license and includes a modified copyright. The copyright as well as a reference to the license for this software is available at the download site, and is included in every distribution and in every java source file.

Have a look here for a relatively accessible comparison of licenses.

This software has been developed in my free time. The contained IP is not related in any way to my previous or current employer.


Release notes for jCleanCim-02v03 (=jCleanCim-02v02.beta-3), 2019-12-20


Note that there is no jCleanCim-02v02, only 2 beta milestones (02v02.beta-2 and 02v02.beta-3) that were made available for local needs of WG13 and ENTSO-E CGMES SG work - used to validate CIM canonical and profile models and produce various WG13 documents before the end of the year. As these have been developed, debugged, tested, feature implementation reverted back after failed tests (MS Word caption labels), and over all incorporated new features on the fly - I decided to simply declare the 02v02.beta-3 as 02v03, eventhough the time was too short for a proper update of the .pptx tutorial. This is my first task for next release, I promise :-).

In the meantime, I hope you can enjoy the following new features.

New features

In this release, main focus was on generic namespace support, stereotypes, document generation options (especially on generating documents from UML profile models), and tireless attempt at supporting English document generation with non-English versions of MS Word. The release also features the contribution used for generation of MIBs for IEC62351-7 (thanks Gigi!) as well as several smaller changes to better support IEC61850 modelling and document generation (more coming in the next release - thanks Laurent!). And as usual, there are a number of new tests and bug fixes.

Stereotype informative

From this release, you can add stereotype informative to any UML model element and it will also be picked for determining whether something is informative, along with the other existing and new logic. The only ignored informative stereotype is for dependency as it does not really make sense to tag a dependency as informative (until proven otherwise :-)).

Along with this change, filtering on printing informative elements (controlled by configuration option docgen.includeInformative ) has been largely improved, to ensure to really exclude informative content of any kind by default, i.e., when option is set to ("false", "", null). You may want to set that option to true to print the informative content for debuging purposes, or during extensions development, but never for official standard documents.

New configuration option docgen.showCustomStereotypes (TODO - add to .ppt:docgen.showCustomStereotypes=true)

If set "true", it allows to show in the generated document custom UML stereotypes on UML model elements, in addition to built-in stereotypes already handled per model nature. Default is ("false", "", null) to preserve old behaviour, in which all custom stereotypes (non-built-in for a model nature) are not explicitly shown in generated documents. UML model managers in standardisation bodies want to keep this empty/false for main standard documents, and set it to true for these use cases:

  1. peer reviews during standard model development (through use of custom stereotypes such as changed, new, old, delete, discuss, etc.);
  2. review of proposed extensions marked with a given stereotype;
  3. standard document generation from standard extensions model (e.g., European extensions);
  4. users of the tool with models which are neither CIM nor IEC61850 may want to generate UML documentation (MS Word or XML) with their own stereotypes. Default model nature is CIM (unless explicitly specified as IEC61850 with configuration property model.nature.iec61850), so the built-in CIM stereotypes are "reserved" and cannot be modified at present.

Note: This option does not filter elements for document generation, it merely allows you to "hide" and show the custom stereotypes on UML elements in the generated document. For actual filtered printing based on custom stereotypes, see the next section.

New configuration option docgen.skipForCustomStereotypes (TODO - add to .ppt e.g.: docgen.skipForCustomStereotypes=European,new)

This new option allows for selective document generation from UML models of a given nature that contain both standard model parts and extensions tagged with a custom stereotype for that nature. You can use this option now to explicitly skip during document generation all UML elements that have any of the custom stereotypes in the list specified here. This is useful in at least these use cases:

  1. a WG develops extensions which are mixed with the normative parts of the model and tags those extensions with a stereotype (e.g., new), and wants to be able to generate documentation both with and without these extensions, e.g. for peer review
  2. an organisation or a project develops extensions tagged with a custom stereotype which are either mixed with the normative parts of the model or are in extension package, but the inheritance and associations result in stereotyped extensions being mixed with the normative parts of the model. The standardisation WG then wants to be able to skip these when generating documents, without manually removing anything from the model (they add the custom stereotype(s) in this option), and the organisation or project owning extensions want to leave this option empty (to see their extensions printed).

This list is matched against the built-in, standard stereotypes according to modelling rules and any built-in stereotype (per model nature) from this list is removed (i.e., there is no overriding of built-in stereotype consideration for document generation). Empty list is valid and reflects default behaviour, i.e., everything found in the model according to other specified filtering options is printed. Not having this option or having it with an empty value preserves the default behaviour: to not exclude anything based on stereotype only, i.e., to include everything not disabled by other options (e.g., informative or private model elements).

Important: The list given here ignores any built-in stereotype per nature in order to not modify the behaviour established and defined for built-in stereotypes. So, any built-in stereotype you specify here will simply be ignored. Examples of built-in stereotypes:

New configuration option docgen.showNamespacePackages (TODO - add to .ppt model.showNamespacePackages = Base, Dynamics, Part303, IEC61968, IEC62325, ExtEuBase)

According to CIM modelling guidelines, we can use tagged values nsuri and nsprefix to support namespace definition within the UML model itself, as well as for extensions and for generation of various implementation afterfacts. We typically specify these two tagged values at the top level (e.g., TC57CIM) and then everything below that package will have the same namespace, unless an element of UML model overwrites it. Almost every element of UML that supports tagged values can use this mechanism. So, from this release, you can control document generation inclusion or not of this information, by specifying for which UML packages to output in the MS Word document a line of text with the namespace information. Examples include Base and ExtEuBase (for 61970-301 main part and Annex A, respectively), Dynamics (for 61970-302), etc. If you don't specify any package name, or use an older config.properties file, no namespace information gets printed (default).

Note that this mechanism of namespace (the usual URI and optional prefix) is supported for any UML model nature, so in theory, for IEC61850 models as well.

However, IEC61850 has a special definition for document namespace and dedicated UML modelling for this. The IEC61850Namespace mechanism will be supported in the next jCleanCim release.

New configuration option docgen.word.includeInheritancePath (TODO - add to .ppt:docgen.word.includeInheritancePath = true)

This options allows to include the list of classes along the inheritance path for a class. Default is false, as well as when the option is missing from the configuration, to preserve the default behaviour. In the supplied configuration file we have enabled this option as it is rather useful and you can see with the test run how the result looks like and whether to keep it.

Important: jCleanCim does not support multiple inheritance, but it should not crash if it finds it in the model. The behaviour for multiple inheritance is undefined.

Support for custom styles (TODO - update .ppt)

Disclaimer: The MS Word and its API are for certain features unpredictable, as are all the people who edited in the past 25 years the document you use as template. This is the best I can give at the moment. Please pay attention to the WARN or ERROR log entries (what you see on the screen and what gets saved in the ./log/jCleanCim.log file). And please, be careful about style names in MS Word (see how MS Word can smart you out).

You can now try using the following new configuration options:

to specify a comma-separated list of style names, in order of your preference. To accommodate for non-portable style handling accross some application locales (English vs. non-English installation of MS Word), we expect the user to configure preferred styles in order of preference, and the first one found in the existing document will be used all allong. If none of configured styles exists in the document, the built-in one from the document will be used. jCleanCim never modifies your PC registry and/or global application templates (such as Normal.dot for MS Word), so if you are unhappy with the fall-back solution, please go ahead and add in the document generation application (such as MS Word) the desired styles as custom and rerun document generation. On that next run, the document should contain your desired style name(s).

MIBs generation (for IEC62351-7) - contribution by Gigi Pugni (TODO - add to .ppt)

This is the new feature developed by WG15 for their IEC62351-7. This jCleanCim release incorporates that new feature into the baseline with the code provided by Gigi Pugni, and it can be used by means of three new configuration options:

MIBs generation can be enabled simultaneously with the MS Word document generation if you need both outputs.

Some small test model and template to exercise this function should be available in the next release. In the meantime, WG15 can use the feature now integrated into the baseline.

New configuration option statistics.tagsToIgnore (TODO - add to .ppt statistics.tagsToIgnore = GUIDBasedOn)

This option allows you to add which tags to NOT export into statistics log (to shorten log). You may want to use this in case you discover that the custom tool / add-on that you use heavily marks your model with tagged values and you don't want to end up with (tens of) thousands of lines of log listing every single item in your model. In the supplied configuration file we have already added one such tagged value, known to be present in CIM profiles created and maintained with CimConteXtor: GUIDBasedOn .

Credits

Gigi Pugni has contributed java code package with fully functional generation of MIB syntax, based on the modelling as used to support IEC62351-7. He also provided documentation describing in detail how WG15 does modelling and generates MIBs.

Laurent Guise has provided a prototype that inspired the implementation of most of IEC61850-specific features in this release. Thanks for beeing the sparring partner for non-English MS Word tests and discussions :-).

Performance changes in release 02v03

None. Note however that newer versions of Enterprise Architect seem to always be somewhat slower than the older ones (we noticed the slow down in diagram generation for factor 3-4).

Deprecated API

Potential backwards compatibility breaking changes for the application user

Potential forwards incompatibility for the application user: old jCleanCim with new EA

Other user-visible changes

Validation rules:

Bug fixes:

Known issues / limitations:

Implementation and packaging:

Documentation:


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