Jump—from java annotations to UML profiles

Abstract

The capability of UML profiles to serve as annotation mechanism has been recognized in both industry and research. Today’s modeling tools offer profiles specific to platforms, such as Java, as they facilitate model-based engineering approaches. However, the set of available profiles is considerably smaller compared to the number of existing Java libraries using annotations. This is because an effective mapping between Java and UML to generate profiles from annotation-based libraries is missing. In this paper, we present JUMP to overcome this limitation, thereby continuing existing mapping efforts by emphasizing on annotations and profiles. We demonstrate the practical value of JUMP by contributing profiles that facilitate reverse-engineering and forward-engineering scenarios for the Java platform. The evaluation of JUMP shows that profiles can be automatically generated from Java libraries exhibiting equal or even improved quality compared to profiles currently used in practice.