SysMLv1.6: HOWTO: Use an AssociationBlock with a Connector and ConnectorProperty «connector» in Cameo Systems Modeler

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The following assumes you already understand "association blocks" (which are just an AssociationClass stereotyped by SysMLv1 «block») and ParticipantProperty. The ParticipantProperty aspect is not leveraged in this example, the focus is on the SysMLv1.6 ConnectorProperty.

Firstly, note that ConnectorProperty is DEPRECATED in SysMLv1.7:

ConnectorProperty is still supported in Magic Cyber-Systems Engineer® (Cameo Systems Modeler®) as of v2024x. This may in part be so that the additional display functionality required for «connector» can be targeted in the tool.

Once you have an AssociationBlock, the easiest way to create a ConnectorProperty is to create a Connector first between two part properties typed by Blocks corresponding to the AssociationBlock ends (in the example diagram the Connector is p1:Pipe) then drag the AssociationBlock onto the Connector. Cameo will automatically create a ConnectorProperty, display its «connector» symbol in the IBD, assign the 'connector' to the ConnectorProperty, and create the dashed line from the ConnectorProperty symbol to the Connector.

[An alternative, less elegant way to create a ConnectorProperty is using the Create Element context menu in the model browser. Assign an AssociationBlock as type. But then you have to assign the 'connector' by hand using the specification dialog (use drag n drop). To get the dashed line to show from a ConnectorProperty previously created using Create Element, assign a 'connector' (here p1) of the AssociationBlock type to the ConnectorProperty. Cameo will then prompt you to sync the ConnectorProperty and will then show the dashed line.]

Note that you can't just drag an AssociationBlock into a Block symbol to create a ConnectorProperty.

In the example shown the ConnectorProperty is of AssociationBlock type Pipe and is named 'cp' (for ConnectorProperty) for easy reference.

There are various ways of showing specific values for the ConnectorProperty. At the 1st level, if you have default values assigned for each value property in the Association Block, you can show them under the values compartment on the ConnectorProperty symbol.

At the 2nd level, if you assign an instance (here p1) of the AssociationBlock as the default for your ConnectorProperty, you can then show those values in the defaultValue compartment.

(At the 3rd level, if you had a higher level context you could even use the so-called initialValues compartment – better known as context-specific values.)

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