I have a question that relates more to the UML and its correct usage
rather than the use of the UML2 API. Please let me know if this newsgroup
is not right place for it. Is the modeling newsgroup better?
I have an abstract data model which will be programatically transformed to
XML Schema using well defined mappings rules. One of the concepts I need
to represent is a high-level container class with a property that contains
items whose type could be one of a number of unrelated types. By
unrelated I mean that they do not have a common ancenstor via
generalization. I don't want to use generalization becuase it feels like
the wrong relationship semanticly.
I am wondering what constructs to use. Substitution seems to be the right
choice here but the definitions in the spec lean towards a software
component which makes me question the choice. Is it still appropriate for
data only modelling. I am also not sure about the approach becuase I need
to create a new abstract class to act as the contract for substitution,
this class then needs to be identified as special during transformation.
I'd also need to prevent attributes and operations from being defined on
this class becuase its not meaningful for what I'm trying to do, so maybe
I'd need a stereotype... all this makes me wonder if I'm on the right
track.