For last so many days, I was playing with a format without knowing what it is actually. Now then my urgent work is over, I got a chance to look into it.
XMI – The XML Metadata Interchange format. I am not sure if you have come across such extension before. But its there and is surely would help in development of future tools. XMI is a specification that contains details about metadata. This is very closely linked to UML and thus, is capable of storing UML diagrams within it in an XML format. It integrates 3 industry standards: XML (for storing metadata), UML (stores UML details) and MOF (Meta Object Facility, which is an OMG language for specifying meta models – even I need to read on this further :)).
This specification can allow sharing of diagrams between various designing tools and thus help in standardizing system designs. This can be used by tools working across platforms, as it a simple XML file at the base level. The only issue that pundits in this field feel is its extensibility. But its specifications are evolving and this would soon become an important part of designing tools.
In the same field is OIM – Microsoft’s Open Information Model. This model also provides XML based UML metadata storage. Not much detail is available, but it was released much earlier and is much more extensible than XMI. More details on this later.
In a nutshell, there are specifications available like OIM and XMI to standardize UML models to ensure cross-platform and cross-tool access.
