Download

ActiveFacts is packaged as a Ruby GEM. If you have Ruby installed, just say (omit "sudo" on Windows):

  sudo gem install activefacts
  

API Documentation

After installing, you can read the Ruby API documentation by visiting http://localhost:8808/ in your browser after starting

  gem server
  

The ActiveFacts generator

CQL Examples are provided in the examples/CQL directory under activefacts in your gem directory (mine is /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/). Copy the files you're interested in and you can generate code from them using commands like the following:

  afgen --ruby OilSupply.cql
  afgen --sql/server Warehousing.cql
  

afgen also reads .orm files from NORMA. You might also try the CQL command line tool.

Installing on Windows

Use the Ruby 1.8.7 installer from RubyInstaller. After running the installer, you need to add Ruby to your PATH. The default install location is C:\Ruby187\, so execute the following command in a Windows command prompt:

  PATH C:\Ruby187\bin;%PATH%
  

Or right-click "My Computer" -%gt; Properties -%gt; Advanced -%gt; Environment Variables -%gt; System Variables Scroll down to find the entry for Path and double-click it. Click in the Variable value: text widget and move the cursor to the start of the value before typing C:\Ruby187; before the first entry. Hit Ok three times and start a new command prompt.

If you got that all right, you should be able to enter the interactive Ruby interpreter in the command prompt by typing irb <ENTER>. Exit from irb (^D) and you should be able to use gem install activefacts as above. If your computer is behind a firewall, download the activefacts gem file, along with those for Treetop, Polyglot and Rake, and use gem install <file>.gem to install those in the reverse order.

Source Code Repository

The source code is available at GitHub.

Object Role Modeling

If you want to draw your own Object Role Modeling diagrams and have a copy of Windows Visual Studio (pro only, not Express), you can freely download and install the Neumont ORM Architect. The example models are available in the correct format from the examples directory. The ActiveFacts generator afgen can process ORM files as easily as CQL files, though a little slower due to the volume of XML to be parsed.

More information and discussion

Status messages go to the Yahoo information_modeling group, which is also available as an NNTP feed on Gmane. Subscribe today and share your thoughts!