Single file serialization for physical and logical meta-model information

摘要

A technique for serializing both logical and physical meta-model information in a single file is disclosed. In an embodiment, the logical meta-model information is serialized in an Extensible Marking Language (XML) schema compliant format, and the physical meta-model information is inserted into the logical meta-model in suitable locations such that the mappings between the logical and physical meta-models are preserved. In an embodiment, an XML “appInfo” annotation is used to carry physical meta-model information used by multiple applications and suitably placed in a nested configuration with its corresponding logical meta-model information.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method of serializing a meta-model, said meta-model comprising logical meta-model information, physical meta-model information and mappings therebetween, said method comprising:
serializing said logical meta-model information into an extensible markup language XML schema representation; preserving the mappings between the logical meta-model information and the physical meta-model information in the XML schema representation,
wherein said preserving the mappings between the logical meta-model information and the physical meta-model information in the XML schema representation comprises creating an annotation in the XML schema representation for each of the mappings, wherein the annotation identifies a corresponding one of the set of one or more constructs of the physical meta-model information; serializing the physical meta-model information into an intermediate representation, wherein the intermediate representation indicates a set of one or more constructs of the physical meta-model information; and inserting into the XML schema representation each of the set of one or more constructs of said physical meta-model information from the intermediate representation in accordance with the mappings preserved in the XML schema representation.