Ecore is EMF's object-oriented modelling language, and supports a subset of UML class diagrams (without the graphical notation), that is big enough to support basic domain modelling and small enough to allow for an efficient and lean framework.There can be many perspectives on modelling, traditionally UML class diagrams have been used for both analysis and design, i.e. describing the concepts in the domain as perceived by stakeholders and describing the software solution. When building an Ecore model, there are typically two perspectives that are relevant:

• With a code-centric perspective you create Ecore classes with features that allows the generator to generate the desired Java classes.
• With a runtime-perspective, you think of the Ecore classes as a way of constraining the object structures that are allowed during runtime.

When describing Ecore's modelling constructs below, we will discuss both these perspectives.

Ecore's modelling constructs

Ecore supports classes with attributes (properties of simple types), associations (references to other modelled classes) and operations, and multiple inheritance.