ECoreNetto.Tools

Introduction

ECoreNetto Tools is a commandline application used to process an Ecore model and generate a report on the contents of that model. The application is distributed as an executable via the Releases as well as a dotnet tool available from https://nuget.org.

The tool is built on System.CommandLine and uses Autofac for dependency injection, Serilog for file logging and Spectre.Console for its themed console output. The actual report generators live in the ECoreNetto.Reporting library (see Reporting).

Installation

Windows 64 bit

• Download the executable from the latest release. The filename is ECoreNetto.Tools.exe
• Verify that the hash is the same as is documented on the release notes
  • Open a Power-Shell console
  • Execute the Get-FileHash providing the path the downloaded file ECoreNetto.Tools.exe

Dotnet tool

The tool targets net10.0, so the .NET 10 runtime/SDK is required.

to install:

dotnet tool install --global ECoreNetto.Tools

to uninstall:

dotnet tool uninstall --global ECoreNetto.Tools

When installed as a global tool the command name is ecoretools.

Reports

ecoretools can generate four kinds of report:

• Inspection Report (inspect): a text based report of the variations of types and multiplicities and a list of classes and features that lack documentation. This report is used to support template based code generation, so that the classes and enums that exercise the variations in the Ecore model can be verified during code generation.
• Excel Report (excel-report): an Excel workbook with a Model Info sheet and EClass, EEnum and EDataType sheets that list all classes, their features and documentation.
• HTML Report (html-report): a single, self-contained HTML document with sections for Enumerations, Primitive Types, Data Types, Classes, Interfaces and Diagrams. Per class it renders the fully-qualified name, generalizations, specializations and containers, a properties table (attributes and references with multiplicity and {ordered}/{unique}/{id}/{readonly}/{transient}/{volatile}/{unsettable}/{derived}/{composite}/{opposite} chips), OCL constraint (rules) and operations tables, plus collapsible sections and embedded, downloadable SVG inheritance and association diagrams. See Reporting for details.
• Markdown Report (md-report): a Markdown document with a model-information block and Data Types, Enumeration Types and Classes sections.

Commands

command	description	output extension(s)
inspect	Inspects an ECore model and generates a text report	.txt
excel-report	Generates a tabular (Excel) report of the ECore model	.xlsx, .xlsm, .xltx, .xltm
html-report	Generates an HTML report of the ECore model	.html
md-report	Generates a Markdown report of the ECore model	.md

Options

All commands share the following options:

option	shorthand	description	default
--input-model	-i	The path to the input .ecore file	model.ecore
--input-directory	-d	The path to a directory of .ecore files; produces a single combined report for every model in it	(none)
--include-referenced-models	-r	Produce a single combined report that also includes every cross-referenced .ecore model reachable from the input model	false
--output-report	-o	The path (including filename) of the report file; the extension must match the report type	per report (e.g. html-report.html)
--auto-open-report	-a	Open the generated report with its default application	false
--no-logo		Suppress the logo	false
--log-level		Sets the logging level (Trace, Debug, Information, Warning, Error, Critical)	Information
--help	-?	Shows help information

Single-file reports

By default a report documents a single input .ecore file. Cross-file references are still demand-loaded and resolved, but only the entry file's classifiers appear in the report.

windows executable:

ECoreNetto.Tools.exe -?
ECoreNetto.Tools.exe inspect       --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.txt>
ECoreNetto.Tools.exe excel-report  --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.xlsx>
ECoreNetto.Tools.exe html-report   --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.html>
ECoreNetto.Tools.exe md-report     --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.md>

dotnet tool:

ecoretools -?
ecoretools inspect       --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.txt>
ecoretools excel-report  --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.xlsx>
ecoretools html-report   --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.html>
ecoretools md-report     --input-model <path-to-model.ecore> --output-report <path-to-report.md>

Combined multi-file reports

A metamodel is often split across several .ecore files (for example the Eclipse Capella metamodel, which spans 21 cross-referencing files). ECoreNetto Tools can produce one report that documents a whole multi-file metamodel. This works for every report type.

There are two ways to select the models:

• Entry model + everything reachable — pass a single entry file with -r / --include-referenced-models. The report contains the entry model plus every model that is reachable from it through cross-references.

  ecoretools html-report -i <entry-model.ecore> -r --output-report combined.html
  

• A whole directory — pass a directory with -d / --input-directory. Every .ecore file in the directory is loaded into one ResourceSet and aggregated into a single report. This reliably covers every file in the folder.

  ecoretools html-report -d <path-to-ecore-directory> --output-report combined.html
  ecoretools md-report    -d <path-to-ecore-directory> --output-report combined.md
  ecoretools excel-report -d <path-to-ecore-directory> --output-report combined.xlsx
  ecoretools inspect      -d <path-to-ecore-directory> --output-report combined.txt
  

When -d is supplied it takes precedence and -i is not required. Cross-file references remain resolved in the combined report, and (for HTML) anchors stay unique across files so the intra-document links work.

Open the file and inspect the contents. When --auto-open-report is used the linked application opens the file. In the case of the Excel report make sure the file is not already open in the application.