Andre Dietisheim [http://community.jboss.org/people/adietish] modified the 
document:

"Create Eclipse Ecore (EMF) Models manually"

To view the document, visit: http://community.jboss.org/docs/DOC-15705

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h1. *Forewords*

EMF provides a runtime and tools that allow you to create ecore object models. 
The starting point is a model definition. It may be created out of a XML Schema 
(XSD), annotated java classes, etc.  but you will mostly craft one by hand. 
This document attempts to describe the process involved in the later. It will 
show you the basic steps to create an ecore model implementation and give you 
some more advanced hints here and there.
 

There are a few tutorials available on  
http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/docs/#tutorials eclipse.org, the best one 
(to my eyes's) the one provided by  
http://www.vogella.de/articles/EclipseEMF/article.html Lars Vogella.

h1. Get started, create an EMF Project
To get started, create an empty EMF project.

 
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You'll get a new project, that's set up to work with the EMF framework.
What's pops to your eyes is that there's a *model* directory in this project. 
That where the model definitions, the ecore files, are put (not a must but a 
standard so far).

h1. Create a Model Definition
Create a new ecore model file in this folder by selecting the folder and 
triggering the new ecore model wizard.

 
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h1. Create a Package
We created the empty ecore model so far, so the next step is to create a 
package for your model. You set its name, Ns Prefix and Ns URI.
The good practice (or at least what most modelers do) is to set them to:

* *name*: a simple term (not required to be unique)
* *Ns prefix*: ~shoretened 'java package' name (not required to be unique)
* *Ns URI*: some real (or bogus) unique URI where the scheme might be found.

h4. example
I have a plugin/module in cdo called *org.eclipse.emf.cdo.ui.defs*
The ecore model for it has the following definitions:

*name*: defs
*Ns prefix*: cdo.ui.defs
*Ns URI*:  http://www.eclipse.org/emf/CDO/ui/defs/1.0.0 
http://www.eclipse.org/emf/CDO/ui/defs/1.0.0

h1. Model Your Classes
You can now add classes to your package.  There are different editors at hand 
that you may use to edit your ecore file. The most common one is the *Sample 
Ecore Model Editor* that is included in the Eclipse modeling edition. 
Alternatively you may also use text based editors like  
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Emfatic Emfatic or  http://www.eclipse.org/Xtext/ 
Xtext. There are also graphical editors around like the*  
http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emft/?project=ecoretools Ecore Diagram Editor 
or the eUML2 Editor.*

Ecore files define classes that will be generated in a later step. The 
generated java classes are not plain POJOs but extend  
http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/emf/javadoc/2.5.0/index.html?org/eclipse/emf/ecore/package-summary.html
 EObject (you may tell the generator to create POJOs though). You may therefore 
only define elements that EObjects may have. There are *Classes, Attributes*, 
*References*, *Operations*, etc. A quick look at the  
http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/emf/javadoc/2.5.0/org/eclipse/emf/ecore/doc-files/EcoreHierarchy.gif
 EObject class diagram may help you get in touch with the terms used in EMF.

EObjects offer various capabilities that are not (or at least at high cost) 
offered with plain POJOs. Extending EObjects in your model classes offers you 
all these capabilities free of charge:

* *serialization* (XML, XMI, binary, database based persistence, etc.)
* *change propagation*
* ** *validation*
* ** *object* *query*
* ** etc. 

Furthermore the EMF ecosystem holds plenty of frameworks that extend it in 
various areas. Using EObject based POJOs allows you to take advantage of all 
these powerful frameworks.

h1. All Ways lead to Rome 
*
*
There are usually several ways to get to the desired result (aka generated java 
code). The best way to find out about them is to get the† book or error and 
trial. A rule of thumb is to have all classes available in your model. This is 
evident for ecore classes. But if your ecore classes use references to plain 
java types (that are not part of your ecore model in the strict sense) you'll 
at least need to declare those java types in the ecore model. In other words, 
the ecore model needs to know about all types (ecore or plain java) that are 
part of your model.

h4. example1
Let's say that my modeled class CDOEditorDefs has a method execute() that 
throws an ExecutionException. I could add that method by hand but as a matter 
of taste I prefer to declare that method in my model.
My model does not know anything about this exception so far, so there's no way 
to get the correct signature generated out of the box . I'll therefore have  to 
declare this exception in model. I create a DataType *ExecutionException*.

create an EDataType:

 
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Give it an instance type name so it won't be generated but is referencable:


 
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Set the execute method (operation) to throw the ExecutionException:

 
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The generated method now throws the given Exception:

 
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h4. example2

A very common problem is to have modeled (ecore-) classes extend Java 
Interfaces. For instance this could be java.lang.Comparable
The best way to achieve that is to model a class Comparable. Do not model its 
operation as this is just a mirror of the real java interface in the 
ecore-world.
Interfaces are modeled as supertypes in ecore. You therefore cannot use 
EDataTypes here  as they cannot be supertypes of ecore classes. Nevertheless 
you can achieve that in a slight different manner: You model a (real) ecore 
class, but you set its instance type name: *java.lang.Comparable*. You can now 
add the Comparable class to the super type of each ecore-class that shall 
implement Comparable. The generator will not generate an ecore class that's 
called Comparable but it will include java.lang.Comparable in the interface 
that your ecore-classes implement.

+*Not sure I follow this example and what we're trying to illustrate.  Would 
example code help?*+

h1. Get prepared to generate code, create a Genmodel
This is mostly straight forward. Select the ecore file and create a genmodel 
for it.  Select your ecore file and start a new *EMF Generator Model* wizard. 
The wizard will allow you to create a so called Generator Model that holds all 
settings which are important to the code generation process.

 
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There are 2 settings that might be of interest to you:

'*All*' (property group when the package is selected):
- *Base Package*: the base package all ecore classes get generated to
- *Prefix*: Prefix that the factory- and package-class get

 
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example (still using the cdo.ui.defs example):

*Base Package*:  org.eclipse.emf.cdo.ui
*Prefix*: CDOUIDefs

Package-class gets CDOUIDefsPackage, Factory gets CDOUIDefsFactory, etc. All 
classes get generated to the package org.eclipse.emf.cdo.ui

Further modifications you might be interested in are the suffixes of the 
sub-packages (the defaults creates an 'impl' package where it puts all 
implementation classes). It can be modified by selecting the '*Package 
Suffixes*' and choosing the properties '*Implementation*' and '*Interfaces*'.
The naming of the implementation- and interface-classes may be changed, too. 
You find those settings if you select the root-node of the tree in the 
genmodel-editor and choose the '*Model*' property group. You'll find 'Class 
Name Pattern' and 'Interface Name Pattern' among the available properties. The 
explanations for the values show up in the statusbar (default is '*{0}impl*' 
and '*{0}*').

 
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Once you're done defining your generator model, you simply need to generate the 
implementation classes. Select the package you want to generate, right click 
and select the implementation you want to create. You may choose among the 
models, the editor, the tests.

 
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h1. Modify the Generated Classes
Ecore is built to be modified, the basic usage-pattern is to code and generate 
hand-in-hand. To tell the generator not to override your modifications you need 
to set the javadoc-annotation to anything different than '@generated'. Good 
practice says that you should set it to '@generated NOT'. Good practice also 
tells you to annotate any manually added method by '@ADDED', but its optional 
though.
There is another handy that allows you to modify and get the generated code. If 
you want to have your code instead of the generated one, you just annotate 
accordingly and the generator will preserve your code. If you want the 
generated code, too, you'd need to create a method that has the original name + 
a suffix 'Gen'

example:

/**
*
* @generated NOT
*/
public void setName(String name) {
    YOUR OWN CODE
}

/**
*
* @generated
*/
public void setNameGen(String name) {
    GENERATOR provides the generated code in here
}

After making your modifications, you simply need to re-generate the ecore 
classes. (+*How?*+)

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