It is often handy to be able to parse text into a relatable UML Elements (rather than into a Comment with just "handles") so that one can leverage Dependencies and the Display Related Elements facility of MagicDraw UML. Although a DirectedRelationship can be made between base Elements, the UML Parsing Analysis recipe employs (at least) the Dependency as the relationship, and (at least) a NamedElement. as a "parsing container" to hold the parsed analysis text.

There a number of candidate Classifiers that are suitable as relatable parsing containers, including:

• Component offers itself very well (if clearly stereotyped as a semantic misappropriation) because:
  • it can participate in ComponentRealization dependencies, which can be
    easily traced to the contents of the Component as parsing container
  • it can nest (both graphically and physically) to form trees of parsed text
  • it can graphically contain other elements to form "parasitic" logical views:
    • TIP: In MagicDraw UML the Component symbol does not "steal ownership" of elements moved into it in a diagram
      • WARNING: the Component element in the model browser will correctly steal ownership of elements moved into it in the browser
• Artifact also offers itself because:
  • it is traditionally associated with documentation
  • it can nest (both graphically and physically) to form trees of parsed text
  • con: it can't graphically contain other important elements, such as Class
• Class is NOT a candidate, as it can't graphically nest, so it fails an important requirement of the UML Parsing Analysis recipe

DO NOT use Package (or Model) as a parsing container, as it steals ownership of elements, and thus is ill-suited to forming logical views !

I recommend that you parse text into Comment first then only "upgrade" to a Classifier if really necessary. Reasons for upgrading include:

1. you want to reuse the parsed text many times in different places easily by using Display Related Elements
   
2. you want to relate other elements to the parsed text in a reusable way
   

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