What is MXAM?
MES Model Examiner® (MXAM) offers fast and reliable guideline compliance verification for Simulink®, Stateflow®, Embedded Coder®, TargetLink®, ASCET®, and Enterprise Architect® models, as well as Excel® data, using general and company-specific modeling guidelines and data rules.
Certified by TÜV SÜD for IEC 61508, ISO 25119, and ISO 26262
What's new?
Highlights in MES Model Examiner® (MXAM) v.6.3
Focusing on user experience, a number of detailed improvements in user feedback and tool behavior is dedicated to enhance the daily work with MXAM. They provide a stable basis for upcoming exciting features.
Highlights in MES Model Examiner® (MXAM) v.6.2
Clone group detection
The clone group metric identifies groups of subsystems that are almost identical. Such repetitive implementation, potentially created by copy/paste actions during modeling, increases the overall complexity of a model and thus should be avoided.
Improved MATLAB batch execution
A new configuration option for the MATLAB API allows synchronous execution of batch tasks.
Compatibility with Matlab 2019b and TargetLink 5.0
Highlights in MES Model Examiner® (MXAM) v.6.1
Architectural metrics view
A new view in the report perspective of the MXAM Functional Safety Solution shows MXRAY metrics, supports sorting, and filtering. Tables and trees can be exported to Excel.
Highlights in MES Model Examiner® (MXAM) v.6.0
Enhance static model analysis with architectural aspects (BETA)
Static analysis of MATLAB models is complemented by MXRAY model metrics to evaluate adherence to architectural design principles. Useful functionalities of the MXAM analysis framework, such as use of parameters, annotations, ignore lists, and reporting options, are also available.
New MXRAY model metrics guidelines and checks (Functional Safety Solution)
MXRAY checks focus on Restricted Local Complexity, Restricted Number of Hierarchy Levels, Restricted Number of Inports and Outports, Restricted Cyclomatic Complexity, and Use of Effective Interfaces.
System Requirements
The following system requirements must be in place to use MXAM v.6.3:
- Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (64-bit versions)
- Java 8 or higher needs to be installed on your system (the tested version to work with MXAM is AdoptOpenJDK 8).
- Webservice Port 10117 (default) must be accessible. Can be changed in tool preferences.
- System requirements when using MXAM with MATLAB®/Simulink®/Stateflow®, and TargetLink®:
- MATLAB® version see table below
- TargetLink® (base suite) version see table below
- Port 5564 (default) must be accessible
- System requirements when using MXAM with ASCET: ASCET 6.1 to 6.4.4 Beta
- System requirements when using MXAM with EXCEL: Excel 2003 and higher
Compatibility of each MXAM release with MATLAB and TargetLink releases
| MXAM Release | MATLAB Release | TargetLink Release |
| 6.3 | R2011b - R2019b | TL 3.3 - TL 5.0 |
| 6.2 | R2011b - R2019b | TL 3.3 - TL 5.0 |
| 6.1 | R2011b - R2019a | TL 3.3 - TL 4.4 |
| 6.0 | R2011b - R2019a | TL 3.1 - TL 4.4 |
| 5.3 | R2011b - R2018b | TL 3.1 - TL 4.4 |
| 5.2 | R2011b - R2018b | TL 3.1 - TL 4.3 |
| 5.1 | R2011b - R2018b | TL 3.1 - TL 4.3 |
| 5.0 | R2011b - R2018a | TL 3.1 - TL 4.3 |
| 4.7 | R2009b - R2017b | TL 3.1 - TL 4.3 |
| 4.6 | R2009b - R2017b | TL 3.1 - TL 4.2 |
| 4.5 | R2009b - R2017a | TL 3.1 - TL 4.2 |
| 4.4 | R2009b - R2017a | TL 3.1 - TL 4.2 |
| 4.3 | R2009b - R2016b | TL 3.1 - TL 4.2 |
| 4.2 | R2009b - R2016b | TL 3.1 - TL 4.2 |
| 4.1 | R2007b - R2016b | TL 2.2 - TL 4.1 |
| 4.0 | R2007b - R2016a | TL 2.2 - TL 4.1 |
| 3.9 | R2007b - R2015b | TL 2.2 - TL 4.1 |
| 3.8 and 1.9.0 | R2007b - R2015b | TL 2.2 - TL 4.1 |
Update to the Latest Version
- If you added MXAM folders permanently to the MATLAB path, please remove all of these folders from the path.
- If you installed the old version in a folder with a version postfix (e.g. x:\project\matlab\mxam_x_x), you can keep that directory as a backup.
- If you installed without a version postfix, you could rename the old installation directory to one with a version postfix as a backup.
Update from MXAM 1 to a Current Version of MXAM
A migration kit to migrate customer-specific checksets and checks is available upon request.
Please contact sales@model-engineers.com.
Installation
Manual Installation
- Installer: Install MXAM by executing the setup file (.exe) and follow the setup instructions.
- The startup of the installation process might take a while depending on the security settings of the client machine.
- Installation to a write-protected directory: Right click the setup file and execute as administrator.
- Zip archive: Unzip the archive into any directory
Automatic Headless Installation
- Run the MXAM installation once on a machine and save your automatic installation data in the Finish Panel to auto-install.xml.
With this data, you will be able to run the same installation on another similar machine. - Configure the auto-install.xml
- Run the automatic installation: >>[installer-name].exe [ABSOLUTE-PATH/auto-install.xml]
Quick Start
Starting MXAM
- For MATLAB platform: Open MATLAB, navigate to the MXAM installation directory, and execute >>mxam
- For other platforms: Start MXAM using the program shortcut or go to the MXAM installation directory and execute mxam.exe
Starting an Analysis
For MATLAB platform:
- Open a model in MATLAB
- Press "Analyze" in MXAM
- Select the model in the artifact dialog
- Press "Finish"
For ASCET:
- Press "Analyze" in MXAM
- Press "Open ASCET 6" in the artifact dialog if it is not yet open
- Press "Refresh" to fetch models from the database
- Press "Finish"
For Others:
- In the Project perspective, press "Add..." in the Artifact Section to add an artifact
- Select the artifact and press "Finish"
- Press "Analyze"
Guidelines
- Go to the "Project Guidelines" perspective to see which guidelines will be checked during the analysis.
- To see the pool of all available guidelines, go to the "Library Browser" perspective and select the "Guidelines" view.
Suggestions
If you have any suggestions to help us improve the MES Model Examiner®, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Email: mxam@model-engineers.com
MXAM Videos
In this video, Model Engineering Solutions (MES) will demonstrate how to set up an MXAM project as an mxmp-file. You will learn how to create and configure an MXAM project and how to save and load a project. Since this video is focused on the first step of the MXAM workflow, basic knowledge of the workflow is needed in order to watch this video.
In this video MES will explain how to understand reports and demonstrate how to work with them in order to make your model guideline compliant. You will need to have basic knowledge about the MXAM workflow to watch this video.
User Guide
The MES User Guide presents clear instructions on how to work with the MES Model Examiner® (MXAM). It provides users with information about getting started and working with MXAM.
You can easily call the User Guide by clicking on "Help > Help Contents" in the menu (see image).
Release Notes - MXAM v.6.3 (July 2020)
Tool Framework
Improvements
- Make model metrics configuration files available for user changes. (#8104)
- Display error to user if creation of annotation definition fails. (#8112)
- Display more details to user when connection to third party tools fails, e.g. because of start timeout. (#8130)
- Reduced memory footprint when exporting images in reports for ASCET models. (#8194)
- Reduce size of mxmr reports by omitting default structural details.
- Reduced processing of model structure if user decides to only analyze subsystems.
Bug fixes
- Fixed unreliable initiation of MATLAB connection. (#8050)
- Fixed compatibility between MXAM and the MES Quality Tools plugin for Jenkins. (#8204)
- Fixed handling of unavailable library items when exporting reports. (#8007)
- Updated the ASCET tool adapter to version 5.2.3:
- Decode xml character encodings for ASCET online artifact locations. (#8112)
- Fixed display of library item details if system browser has script debugging enabled. (#8106)
- Respect filter for (de)select all in the artifact configuration. (#7999)
- Prevent non-deterministic crash when releasing of licenses fails. (#8037)
- Provide setting to allow user to not bypass proxy settings for MXAM webservice calls. (8085)
- Fixed usage of -userDir command line option for logging. (#8239)
- In the case that the utility function mes_periprocess filtered out all elements of an array, it may have returned one of its dimensions equal to 0 causing an abort for specific checks. This has been fixed. (#8042)
Guidelines, Checks, and Documents
Improvements
- mcheck_misra_slsf_016_a: The check parameter MISRA_SL_SF.misra_slsf_016_a.ignoredBlocks has been introduced, so as to ignore blocks from the analysis. (#8097)
- mcheck_mes_cgtl_4202, mcheck_ds_0103, mes_sdt_sc001, mes_sdt_sc007_b and mes_sdt_sc007_a: Executing one of these checks with TargetLink 5.0 installed, caused Matlab printing a warning message in the command window. This message will be supressed.
Changes
- mcheck_mes_slsf_9103: The check also ignores the System Requirements block as well as System Requirement Items. (#8099)
Bug fixes
- mcheck_ds_0100: The check aborted if a block with multiple outports, such as an S-R Flip-Flop, was used as a source block for an analyzed block in a TargetLink environment. This issue has been fixed (#8067).
- mcheck_mes_slsf_9103: The check aborted if no elements to analyze were found. The issue was fixed. (#8089)
- mcheck_misra_slsf_027_e: For certain modeling patterns, the check gave incorrect failed findings for signals named outside reusable subsystems. The issue has been fixed (#7918).
- mcheck_misra_tl_4_4, mcheck_misra_slsf_008_a: The checks gave a failed finding for Math Function blocks where the option ‘SaturateOnIntegerOverflow’ is selected but not modifiable due to the selected ‘Function’ property. These blocks are now being ignored. (#8075)