Syntax Scheme of the xUML Action Language

Names

All object and attribute names in Action Scripts must follow the syntax:

NONE

[a-zA-Z]([a-zA-Z0-9])*

However, UML names are not restricted and may contain any character. To use these names in Action Scripts apply backticks as follows:

NONE

`UML name`

Examples can be found in the table below. Consequently, the only characters not allowed in UML names used in Action Scripts are backticks (`).

UML Type	UML Name	Usage Example
Class attribute	strange name having blanks and dots: ...	object.`strange name having blanks and dots: ...`;
Class attribute	a-b	object.`a-b`;
Operation	::my strange operation name::	object.`::my strange operation name::`();
Parameter	äparam	set `äparam` = "test";
Object	a//b	create `a//b`;
Object	17_name	create `17_name`;

If the Action Script Editor is used, the escaping is done automatically.

If attribute names have an uncommon syntax because they have to be serialized into XML documents, flat files, IDocs and so forth, it is possible to use the tagged value externalName on attributes to hold the external name. If this tagged value is used, the UML attribute can be renamed to whatever name is convenient without affecting the external representation of the attribute.

Scripting Style

Operations can be scripted in an object-oriented or a procedural syntax style. The differences are shown in the table below, which provides some examples.

Object-Oriented Style	Procedural Style
`myVariable.exists();`	`exists(myVariable);`
`myDataItem.myAttr.exists();`	`exists(myDataItem.myAttr);`
`s.substring(0, 5);`	`substring(s, 0, 5);`
`set aString = s.substring(0, 5).toUpper();`	`set aString = toUpper(substring(s, 0, 5));`

We recommend deciding for either of these alternatives to keep a clean scripting style throughout your project.

Case Sensitivity

All operations, statements, variable names, class names, and attribute names are case sensitive, e.g.

The variables myVar and myvar are two different variables.
The E2E Model Compiler will not recognize the assignment statement Set you need to write set in lowercase instead.

Reserved Keywords

In Action Script Language, the following keywords should not be used as variable names as they are reserved for Action Script execution:

and
append
apply
array
by
catch
create
distinct
each
else
errorCode
errorType

false
first
from
group
if
last
like
local
NULL
or
reduce
select

set
single
sort
then
to
true
unlike
use
using
where