Patent ID: 6874146

Claim:
A method for effecting data interchange between a Universal Modeling Language (UML) compliant software tool and a Meta Object Facility (MOF) compliant repository, the UML compliant software tool and the MOF compliant repository being included in a computer system and coupled together in a distributed heterogeneous environment, the method comprising the steps of: a. registering and storing metadata describing a meta-model in the MOF compliant repository; b. generating a set of rules corresponding to the metadata, wherein the set of rules is XML Document Type Definitions (DTD); c. generating a stream of data representing a document corresponding to the meta-model based on the set of rules wherein the stream of data conforms to XML Metadata Interchange standard; d. transmitting from the repository the stream of data, using an exporter module; and, e. receiving at the software tool the transmitted stream of data, using an importer module.