13. OSATE Implementation Background
The AADL parser has been built with an open source parser generator known as ANTLR. Information regarding this parser generator can be found at http://www.antlr.org.
The graphical AADL editor implementation is based on the Eclipse Graphical Editing Framework (GEF) www.eclipse.org/gef.  It has been provided by the TOPCASED initiative (www.topcased.org).
OSATE has been developed utilizing the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) www.eclipse.org/emf. We have defined a meta model of AADL with the EMF Ecore meta modeling capability.  From this meta model, EMF generates support for a persistent XML representation and an in-core AADL object model.  For the XML representation, EMF generates XML schema and an XMI meta model.
Developers of AADL tool environment plug-ins have access to a range of methods and services that are generated from the AADL meta model and come with the EMF, including XML reader/writer with cross-document references and lazy loading, AADL object model manipulation with history and undo, the AADL object editor mentioned above with AADL- specific enhancements, and AADL-specific processing methods developed by the SEI team.
For more information about the AADL tool environment or if interested in contributing to the AADL tool environment, please contact us at tools@aadl.info.