Editing XML Metadata Interchange (section)

== Overview ==
In the [[Object Management Group|OMG]] vision of modeling, data is split into abstract models and concrete models. The abstract models represent the semantic information, whereas the concrete models represent visual diagrams. Abstract models are instances of arbitrary MOF-based modeling languages such as [[Unified Modeling Language|UML]] or [[SysML]]. For diagrams, the Diagram Interchange (DI, XMI[DI]) standard is used. There are currently several incompatibilities between different modeling tool vendor implementations of XMI, even between interchange of abstract model data. The usage of Diagram Interchange is almost nonexistent. This means exchanging files between [[Unified Modeling Language|UML]] modeling tools using XMI is rarely possible.

One purpose of XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) is to enable easy interchange of metadata between UML-based modeling tools and MOF-based metadata repositories in distributed heterogeneous environments.  XMI is also commonly used as the medium by which models are passed from modeling tools to software generation tools as part of [[model-driven engineering]].

Examples of XMI, and lists of the XML tags that make up XMI-formatted files, are available in the version 2.5.1 specification document.<ref>Object Management Group. [https://www.omg.org/spec/XMI/2.5.1/PDF XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) Specification], version 2.5.1, June 2015</ref>