tests/org.eclipse.ocl.examples.impactanalyzer.testmodel.ngpm/rose-model/Associations.txt

Thoughts on the semantics of associations:
------------------------------------------

An association is a construct at "M1 level" that declares a relation
between two classes. An association is instantiated by zero or more
links between objects. The association specifies in which direction
these links are navigable and by its multiplicities defines how many
links of the same association can be connected to a single object. The
association may be defined to be "composite" meaning that when the
composite parent is deleted then so will be the composite children
(recursively). Furthermore, each object must have at most one
composite parent at any time.

The constraints imposed by an association on the link sets attached to
objects are subject to the same constraint verification and
enforcement policies than other constraints. This means in particular
that constraints may temporarily be violated, still allowing users to
store their objects persistently or try to serialize them into a
message if that is still possible despite the constraint
violations. In particular, minimum multiplicities of 1 may temporarily
be violated specifically during the construction of object graphs.

Given the definition of "Conformance" it must be permissible to use
any object that conforms to the type of an association end in the
respective association on that end. For example, if an association
connects two classes A and B, then on the A end any object is
permissible that conforms to A, roughly meaning that it needs to
expose at least the public features that objects of type A expose.
This means that when an object is fetched from an association it does
not necessarily have to be of the type specified by the association
end, but it will conform to that type.

Implementation-wise this means that when navigating an association,
depending on the representation of the links, the type conformance
graph may need to be known in order to determine all links. For
example, if links are stored as foreign key-like references on the
objects on one end only, all such links on all instances of all types
conforming to the association end's type need to be considered.

Association access:
-------------------

There are two kinds of accessing associations: querying its link set
(read access) and manipulating its link set (write access). The
default querying operation provides an object, the association to
navigate and the end to which to navigate. The query will then return
all objects on the queried end that are related by the given
association to the object provided.

Discussion: Association access may be presented involving
collections. The collections would exhibit semantics similar to the
association ends (see JMI and live collections). Disadvantage: the
association would not be a first-level language construct and would
only appear through the collection mappings. Alternatively,
association access may be realized by making multiplicity a concept
attached to any typed element in the language, including variables,
formal operation parameters and return types and in particular any
expression throughout the language. This could perhaps completely
replace the notion of a collection which then would only be a
placeholder object with an association to the collection's element
type.

(There is a connection between generics and the way to represent
collections in the language. Say there was a generic type Set<E>, then
it could have an association to E that is non-composite but has
unique=true and upperMultiplicity=*. As such, associations could be
seen as a way to implement collections.

If a variable is declared to be of, e.g., type Person[], how can it be
initialized with a corresponding *value*? Is there a literal to
construct a Person[] instance? The result of navigating an association
end could be assigned to such a variable. But how would one write
something as simple as an array construction?
)

Two statements are available for write access to associations: AddLink
and RemoveLink. AddLink will replace an existing link if the link
addition would violate an upper multiplicity of 1. RemoveLink is a
no-op if the link between the objects specified on behalf of the
association specified does not exist. In both cases (AddLink and
RemoveLink) the types of the objects passed need to conform to the
types of the respective association ends.

Tools supporting a specific concrete syntax may allow users to specify
an association end using shortcuts, such as an association end name,
together with auto-completion and disambiguation features resolving
the user specification into a fully-specified association end of a
particular association. During runtime, there shall generally be no
"polymorphism" for association access.

Association ownership:
----------------------

A class is a namespace, and so is an association. AssociationEnds must
be owned by their Association and not by any Namespace, even though
they are a NamedElement. A class may choose to own associations. A
class can explicitly expose an association end as a feature relevant
for conformance to that class using the "AssociationEndExposure"
association. Classes may only expose association ends if they conform
to the opposite end's type.

Associations may as well be owned by a Package namespace.

The association is only known to the system if its owning namespace is
known to the system.

Associations and conformance:
-----------------------------



TODO: Readonly is a decisive factor for conformance because it implies
that only reading operations are permitted on this association. This
means that in a covariant "redefinition" of the association no
manipulation of the covariantly-defined association through the more
general APIs may take place and hence more general objects cannot be
inserted into the specialized association.

It would be intuitive to be able to use association ends in dotted
notation even though the end has not explicitly been exposed.  This
shall work when operating on an instance that conforms to a type of an
association end because the instance could act as an instance on that
side of the association.

From a programmer's perspective, it probably shouldn't make a
difference whether the association end is exposed by the class or not,
and whether the association is owned by this class or another class or
a package. However, from a disambiguiation and polymorphism point of
view there are major differences. Inserting new associations later may
fundamentally change the semantics of already existing code because
different associations mey be used then, "hiding" already existing
links or modifying the "wrong / unexpected" association.

If an association end "b" is accessed by name in the context of a
class A, the search for the association to navigate works as follows:

 - If A exposes an association end named "b" then it is used. (Note
   that if A does not expose an end named "b" then there cannot be a
   class to which A conforms that exposes "b" either because in that
   case A would need to expose an end named "b" as well in order to
   conform. Therefore, there is no need in looking for exposed ends
   named "b" in classes to which A conforms in case it has not been
   found in A already.)

 - If A conforms to a set of types C1..Cn (reflexively, i.e.,
   including itself) that are all type of an association end whose
   other end is named "b" then collect those types C1..Cn and remove
   those from the set that have a conforming type in the set as
   well. If the remaining classes Ci1..Cim with 1<=i1<=im<=n are types
   of association ends of *different* associations with an end "b" on
   the other side, this is ambiguous and considered an error.

From a conformance perspective it is key whether an AssociationEnd is
exposed by a class that conforms to the AssociationEnd's type. If the
class exposes the end, the end is assumed to constitute a "feature" of
the class and thus is considered to be relevant for conformance.
Another class conforms to the class exposing an association end only
if it exposes a "bi-conforming" association end (could be the same
association end exposed by the class to which this class intends to
conform). An association end is "bi-conforming" if nagivability /
orderedness / multiplicity are equal and the two types conform
mutually to each other.

Example:

class A { void a(); }
class B { void b(); }
class C { void b(); void c(); }
association AtoB A a 1 <<>-> 1 B b; // A is composite parent; 1:1 assoc bidirectional

In case the "a" end of the AtoB association is not exposed by B, then
C conforms to B because B does not expose the AssociationEnd as a
feature. This should make the following code legal:

A a1 = ...;
B b1 = ...;
C c1 = ...;
a1.b = c1; // c1's type C conforms to B and thus can be used as a B

However, changing B's signatures by exposing the "a" end of AtoB in B
will make C no longer conforming to B. C would need to add signature
operations that match those induced by exposing the "a" end in B. It
could do so by exposing the "a" end of AtoB as well. This makes C
conform to B which in turn makes exposing the B-typed end allowed.

Concrete textual syntax for expressing associations:

	 ->	    unidirectionally navigable, non-composite, unnamed
	 -Name->    unidirectionally navigable, non-composite, named
	 <-	    unidirectionally navigable, non-composite, unnamed
	 <-Name-    unidirectionally navigable, non-composite, named
	 <>->	    unidirectionally navigable, composite, unnamed
	 <>-Name->  unidirectionally navigable, composite, named
	 <-<>	    unidirectionally navigable, composite, unnamed
	 <-Name-<>  unidirectionally navigable, composite, named
	 <->	    bidirectionally navigable, non-composite, unnamed
	 <-Name->   bidirectionally navigable, non-composite, named
	 <<>->	    bidirectionally navigable, composite, unnamed
	 <<>-Name-> bidirectionally navigable, composite, named
	 <-<>>	    bidirectionally navigable, composite, unnamed
	 <-Name-<>> bidirectionally navigable, composite, named