A method and apparatus are disclosed for modeling XML applications using an extended UML notation. The present invention extends the UML model template to include an additional compartment, referred to as a constant attribute compartment. The constant attribute compartment allows the constant attributes of an XML element to be explicitly represented in the UML model. The disclosed UML model can thereby distinguish XML elements and XML attributes using the additional constant attribute compartment to represent attributes that remain constant through all instances of an object. The UML modeling of XML elements is more clear and readable by separately modeling the constant attributes and the variable attributes of the XML element. The present invention facilitates the automatic generation of XML schemas and source code with the appropriate software tools.
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