Notice: This Wiki is now read only and edits are no longer possible. Please see: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk/-/wikis/Wiki-shutdown-plan for the plan.
EMF Compare/Logical Model
Logical Model
What is a logical model?
We name "logical model" a set of physical resources that form a coherent business model. For example, we could say that a given Java class forms a coherent logical model only when it is linked with all of its imported classes.
In the case of EMF, we name a logical resource (or model) the EMF resource loaded in memory, as opposed to a physical resource (or file) that is merely the serialization of this model on disk. A given EMF model can reference a number of other models, and it will be incoherent, or even sometimes corrupted, if these other models are not loaded in memory. In EMF, a given model can be serialized as a single file, fragmented in multiple files on disk, or reference multiple files. The logical model is only coherent when the whole set of its physical files is accessible.
Eclipse Team
The Eclipse Team project (referred as "Team" in this document) provides an API named "model providers". This API allows implementers to define the semantics of what is a **logical model** : in other words, it allows us to link together a set of **physical resources** that form a coherent business model.