Managing and editing UML documents: structure, integration, automation

Unified Modeling Language (UML) plays an important role in the modern software development process by offering standardized methods for visual modeling, analysis, and design of complex systems. This paper discusses the main aspects of storing, editing, and integrating UML documents with integrated development environments (IDEs). The main focus is on comparing the two main formats for storing UML models – XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). XMI, being an official standard developed by Object Management Group, provides a high degree of detail and compatibility with various UML tools, making it preferable for large and complex projects that require support for the full UML specification. At the same time, JSON is simple and flexible, which makes it suitable for projects where speed of development and ease of integration are important, although it is inferior to XMI in describing complex aspects of UML models. The paper analyzes in detail the methods of editing UML documents, including manual editing and automated approaches, using APIs and scripts. Manual editing is useful when you need to make small changes to the structure of a UML document, but it can be time-consuming and error-prone when working with large projects. Automation, on the other hand, provides effective tools for mass editing and generating UML elements, which significantly speeds up development and minimizes the likelihood of errors, especially since modern tools such as StarUML offer the necessary tools for programmatically modifying UML documents by integrating them into development processes. Combining of UML documents with integrated development environments also plays a key role in increasing development efficiency, as this allows automating code generation based on UML models, maintaining synchronization between code and diagrams, and facilitating visualization and documentation of architectural solutions. Despite the significant advantages, there are challenges associated with limited support for all UML features and potential conflicts between models and code. This only emphasizes the need for further research in this area. Prospects for further research include the development of new methods and tools for working with UML documents, improving their integration with development environments, and using artificial intelligence to automate the analysis and design of UML models. Attention should also be paid to the using of UML with continuous integration processes, which can significantly increase the flexibility and adaptability of software development. Thus, the study of the structure of storing, editing, and integrating UML documents is an important area for optimizing the design and development of modern software systems.