The "format" operator in OCL (Object Constraint Language) is used to create formatted strings based on a given pattern. It takes one or more arguments, including a string that specifies the format pattern and other objects that are used to fill in the placeholders in the pattern.
The format is a static method of the type String:
String.format('thetemplate {0} - {1} that can have any number of replacers, in this case {2}','hello','there',3)
The format pattern consists of two types of characters: plain characters and format specifiers. Plain characters are any characters that are not format specifiers, while format specifiers are placeholders that start with a percent sign (%) and end with a conversion character that indicates the type of value to be inserted.
The sample above will produce:
{| class="wikitable"
Here's an example of how to use the "format" operator in OCL to create a formatted string:
|thetemplate hello - there that can have any number of replacers 3,1
context Person
|}
inv:
[[Category:OCL General Operators]]
self.name.format('My name is %s and I am %d years old.', self.name, self.age) = self.introduction
For more details see [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.string.format?view=net-8.0 Microsofts page]
In this example, we define an OCL constraint for a "Person" class, which requires that the "introduction" attribute is equal to a formatted string generated using the "format" operator. The format pattern is specified as the first argument to the "format" operator, and it contains two format specifiers: "%s" for the name (a string value) and "%d" for the age (an integer value).
{{Edited|July|12|2024}}
The remaining arguments to the "format" operator are the values that should be substituted into the placeholders in the format pattern. In this case, we use "self.name" and "self.age" to fill in the placeholders.
If the name of the person is "Alice" and her age is 30, then the result of the "format" operator will be the string "My name is Alice and I am 30 years old.", which should be equal to the value of the "introduction" attribute of the person object. If this constraint is violated, it indicates that there is an error in the definition of the "Person" class.
[[Category:OCL General Operators]]
Latest revision as of 10:58, 15 March 2024
The format is a static method of the type String:
String.format('thetemplate {0} - {1} that can have any number of replacers, in this case {2}','hello','there',3)
The sample above will produce:
thetemplate hello - there that can have any number of replacers 3,1
