What is MXAM?

What's New?

► Read about all new features in the release notes

Highlights in latest versions of MES Model Examiner^® (MXAM) v.7.3

Clone Group Check
The clone group check identifies repetitive subsystems in the model and creates a finding for each group of subsystem clones. The finding contains model links to each member of a clone group to simplify navigation and review in the model.

Multiple Linking into the Model
Check findings now support the listing of multiple model links in the findings messages. This simplifies navigation in the model e.g. for findings that may be affected by several different elements in a model.

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]

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.

System Requirements

The following system requirements must be in place to use MXAM:

• 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
• System requirements when using MXAM with ASCET: ASCET 6.1 to 6.4.5 Beta
• System requirements when using MXAM with EXCEL: Excel 2003 and higher

Compatibility of each MXAM release with MATLAB and TargetLink releases

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" 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

Release Notes - MXAM v.7.3 (January 2022)

Tool Framework

Improvements

• Added execution environment details and general information to exported EXCEL reports.
• Additional finding attributes, block type, and mask type for MATLAB are now included in the exported reports.
• Improvements made to canceling an analysis.
• Added an entry to the tray icon menu to cancel a running analysis.
• Added a cancel button to the progress dialog of MATLAB.
• The analysis can be canceled during the execution of a check.
• Validation markers for library items are updated when library preferences are changed.
• Added a script (mxamapi/mxam_testLicenseConfig.m) to test the license configuration within MATLAB.
• Added support for navigable links in finding messages.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused the saving of preferences not to function properly after a tool adapter was restarted. (#9359)
• Fixed a bug that caused the saving of preferences not to function properly when MXAM needs to be restarted. (#9330)
• Fixed the handling of library elements in MXRAY model metrics where in some cases elements where counted twice for global ref1 metrics. (#9412)
• Fixed the handling of an empty library search path in the headless execution to not fall-back to the installation folder in order to be consistent with the GUI mode. (#8894)
• Fixed the structure analysis for special subsystem names containing slashes, spaces at the beginning of a name, or subsystem names that match the name of their model when selected as an artifact. (#9361, #9494, #9135)
• Fixed numbering in the table of contents for exported PDF reports. (#9590)

Guidelines, Checks, and Documents

MXRAY model metric check for clone groups now available within MXAM

The check matlab_mxray_1307 (referenced in guideline mes_arch_1307, document Functional Safety Modeling Guidelines) creates a finding for each structural element that is part of a clone group.

New MAB Guidelines (Version 5.0) available

• Enforce line breaks between state action declarations and state action code with guideline jc_0501 (mcheck_jc_0501). (#9372)
• Disable the drop shadow of all blocks with guideline jc_0604 (mcheck_jc_0604). (#9362)
• Prevent division of fixed point data with inconsistent signedness with guideline jc_0611 (mcheck_jc_0611). (#9321)
• Verify the interpolation settings of lookup tables with guideline jc_0626 (mcheck_jc_0626). (#9408)
• Ensure that charts are not executed at initialization with guideline jc_0712 (mcheck_jc_0712). (#9485)
• Prohibit direct transitions between nested Stateflow states if they cross state borders with guideline jc_0723 (mcheck_jc_0723). (#9366)
• Prohibit exit actions in Stateflow charts with guideline jc_0740 (mcheck_jc_0740). (#9370)
• Disallow MATLAB action language in Stateflow charts with guideline jc_0790 (mcheck_jc_0790). (#9369)
• Prevent recursive loops between graphical functions with guideline jc_0804 (mcheck_jc_0804). (#9373)
• Ensure that the model configuration is set to detect incorrect calculation results as errors with guideline jc_0806 (mcheck_jc_0806). (#9484)

New dSPACE Guideline Documents for TargetLink versions 5.0 and 5.1 available

• Disallow the saturate option for block outputs with guideline TL_ADV_OPTI_SATURATION (mcheck_mes_cgtl_4207). (#9360)
• Ensure that all outports of conditionally executed subsystems are explicitly initialized with guideline TL_RULE_GENERAL_OUTPORT_STATE_INIT (mcheck_mes_slsf_2000). (#9368)
• Ensure that all blocks with states are explicitly initialized with guideline TL_RULE_GENERAL_OUTPORT_STATE_INIT (mcheck_mes_slsf_2001). (#9368)

New MES-MATLAB guideline and associated check (in Functional Safety Solution only)

• Verify the interpolation settings of lookup tables and Prelookup tables with guideline mes_slsf_0626 (mcheck_mes_slsf_0626). (#9543)

Improvements

• Significantly reduced the computational overhead introduced by checking for ignored blocks defined by the global parameter Global.IgnoredMasktypes during each check. (#9442)
• The following guidelines and their assigned checks have been updated to support the “Record” block. (New block, introduced in MATLAB R2021a) (#9531)
• hd_0001,cgec_2001,misra_slsf_027_h

Changes

• The check mcheck_sdt_il001_a assigned to the guideline sdt_il001 has been replaced by a new implementation. (#9113)
• The new check requires a compilable model.
• The new check traces signals through Autosar Sender and Receiver ports.
• The new check analyzes each element of bus and vector signals as individual signals.
• The new check will no longer trace signals beyond the borders of the analyzed subsystem.

Bug fixes

• Custom datatypes were not correctly identified for logical and relational TargetLink blocks. This has been fixed. (#9550)
• In some cases, if MXAM did find a reason not to execute the check (eg. model cannot be set to required compile mode), some checks may have issued aborted instead of descriptive findings. This has been fixed. (#9428)
• Fixed a syntax error in the default value of the parameter dSPACE.TargetLink.ds_0093.DiagnosticSettings in the guideline TL_RULE_GENERAL_DIAGNOSTICS (v2) which led to an aborted finding. (#9611)
• Several checks could sometimes try to access the Simulink block library before it was loaded. This has been fixed. The affected checks are listed below. (#9613)
• mcheck_jc_0201, mcheck_jc_0211, mcheck_jc_0221, mcheck_jc_0222, mcheck_jc_0231, mcheck_jc_0232, mcheck_jc_0795, mcheck_na_0030, mcheck_mes_slsf_1101
• The checks mcheck_jm_0002_b and mcheck_misra_slsf_025_a_5 did not properly identify the names of ports associated with Bus Element In and Bus Element Out blocks. This has been fixed. (#9617)
• Triggered TargetLink Main Subsystems were not identified as conditionally executed. This has been fixed. (#9615)