File formats

UPPAAL supports three file formats:

• XML: The newest format is XML based and files in this format have the ending .xml. This format supports all features of UPPAAL. Elements like templates, locations, transitions and labels are described using tags. This format was introduced in the GUI in version 3.2. As of version 3.4, the XML format is also supported by the verification engine. The GUI uses this format as its native file format. The level of abstraction in the format is chosen so that the format is independent of the actual syntax of declarations, invariants, guards, etc. Thus all labels are simply treated as strings without structure. In a GUI, this is very important, since the user might enter arbitrary text into the label fields and the file format must be able to cope with this situation. Before the introduction of the XML format, the XTA format was used. With this format it was not possible to save syntactically incorrect systems, i.e., if the user made a mistake in the syntax of a label it was not possible to save this systems.
• XTA: The XTA format was introduced in version 3.0. This format can only reliably store syntactically correct systems. Anonymous locations are not supported by this format (UPPAAL automatically assigns a unique name to anonymous locations when saved to an XTA file). Graphical information (coordinates) about the objects are stored in a separate UGI file, although this is transparent to the user. XTA files use the ending .xta and UGI files the ending .ugi.
• TA: The TA format is a subset of the XTA format and does not support the template concept nor does it contain any graphical information about the system. UPPAAL can no longer save files in this format, although TA files can still be read.

XML and XTA files can be loaded and stored via the Open Project, Open System, Save System, and Save System As menus. When saving a file, the file type is determined by the file name extension used.