5. Processing AADL Properties
AADL components may contain property values. These values provide information about the component. Properties are declared, as part of an AADL specification, in property sets. Properties can be declared to support specific analyses, to be used both as inputs to the analysis, and to record the results of analysis. This section introduces AADL properties, describes how to declare new properties in an AADL specification, describes how to associate property values with components in an AADL specification, and then describes how to access and manipulate property values using the AADL meta model and OSATE. A security level plug-in is used as a running example. Chapter 10 of the AADL Specification describes the semantics of AADL properties in detail.
Many of the following sections discuss the syntax and semantics of AADL beyond the coverage normally given to these issues in this plug-in guide. This is because to use properties in a plug-in requires that new properties be declared for use in a specification, and thus the plug- in writer must know how to do this. Also, the explanations uncover intricacies of AADL properties that motivate similar intricacies in the resulting properties API provided by OSATE.