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F.A.Q.

PlantUMLの目標は何ですか?

PlantUMLは、シンプルで人間が読むことのできるテキストの記述を使って、UMLの図を描くために使われます。 ご注意いただきたいのは、矛盾した図が描画されてしまうことです。（例えば、２つのクラスがお互いに継承し合うような図です。） ですからPlantUMLは、モデリングツールというよりはむしろ描画ツールです。

PlantUML Serverで生成した画像はいつまで保持されますか?

PlantUML Server で生成されたPNG画像やSVG画像へのリンクは永続的に有効です (つまりサーバが死なない限りは)。
しかしながら、どんな図もサーバには保持されません。

これは矛盾しているように聞こえるかもしれませんが、そうではありません。全ての図は圧縮されURL自身に埋め込まれます。URLを受け取ると、サーバはURLから図のテキスト情報を復元し、画像を生成します。 このため、何も保持する必要がないのです。仮にサーバがダウンしたとしても、コマンドラインで-decodeurlフラグを使用すれば図の内容を取得することが可能です。さらに、図のデータはPNG画像のメタデータに保存されているため、ダウンロードした画像からも図の内容を取得することが可能です。

時折、私たちはサーバをHTTPのTRACEを有効にすることがあるかもしれません。これは主にパフォーマンスの問題(がいくつか発生した場合)でトラフィックを把握するために行います。問題が解決してしまえば、HTTPのTRACEを無効化し、ログも削除します。

また、大まかにサーバ負荷を計測するために、生成された(トップページでプリントされた)図の数をカウントしている点についてもご了承ください。

内容がセンシティブでないかについても考慮に入れてください。たとえ私たちが生成した図を保持しないと言っても、全てのトラフィックはHTTPを通るので捕捉が容易であることを念頭に入れてください。

そのため、センシティブな情報を含む図を生成しようと考えている場合は、ご自分のネットワークにローカルサーバを立てるべきかもしれません。

動かない !

PlantUML は様々なシステムでインストールされており、インストール時に発生したマイナーな問題がユーザから報告されることがあります。
こちらのページをご覧になれば、何が誤っているか手引きを受けられるかもしれません。

どのバージョンの Graphviz を使うべきでしょうか？

Graphviz についての 情報 や実行すべき テスト を確認してください。

PlantUML は 2.26.3 以降のどのバージョンの Graphviz でも動作するはずです。

テスト済みで、動作するものとなっているバージョンは以下のとおりです：

注意： バージョン 2.39 と 2.40 は PlantUMLではうまく動作しないようです.

Graphviz を自身でコンパイルする場合は、 PlantUML が動作するのに必要な libexpat もビルドする必要があります。

Is this mature? I don't see any new release ?

Google Trends are somehow positive. And there are few books that mention PlantUML. So yes, it's mature.

Note that PlantUML is developed with continuous integration in mind. That means that there are new releases quite often, with (hopefully!) backward compatibility. So the file PlantUML.jar may changed over time, while keeping the same name.

If you want to know the exact version you are using, you can type in the command line: 

java -jar plantuml.jar -version

or use the following small special diagram description : 

@startuml
version
@enduml

プログラムの更新がないかを確認するにはどうすればよいですか？

To check if a newer version is available for download, you can go to the download page.

You can also subscribe to the following rss flows:

Or you can use the command line: 

java -jar plantuml.jar -checkversion

This command connects to the PlantUML website, so you may have to set your proxy :
(Please note that -D flags must be set before -jar flag) 

java -Dhttp.proxyHost=myproxy.com -Dhttp.proxyPort=8080 -jar plantuml.jar -checkversion

Or use the following small special diagram description : 

@startuml
checkversion
@enduml

You can also set your proxy using the following syntax : 

@startuml
checkversion(proxy=myproxy.com,port=8080)
@enduml

Eclipseプラグインにてエラーメッセージが表示されたのですが

以下のようなエラーメッセージが表示されたようでしたら :

The currently displayed page contains invalid values

when displaying the Windows/Preferences/PlantUML, you should try to quit Eclipse and use the -clean flag on the command line: 

eclipse -clean

サイズの大きな図を作成したい

PlantUMLは画像の幅と高さを4096に制限しています。この制限を上書きするための環境変数PLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZEが存在します。PlantUMLが起動される前にこの環境変数が設定されている必要があります。以下のように設定できます。 

set PLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZE=8192

または 

setenv PLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZE 8192

以下のように、コマンドラインの引数として指定することもできます。 

java -DPLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZE=8192 -jar /path/to/plantuml.jar ...

ただし、非常に大きな（例えば、 20 000 x 10 000 ピクセルを超えるような)図を作成しようとした場合、メモリ問題が発生する可能性があります。 この場合、以下のパラメータをjava vmに与える必要があります。-Xmx1024m.

アクセント付きの文字を使用したところ、問題が発生しました。

Characters encoding is a subtle thing... By default, PlantUML use the default charset of your platform, which may or may not be UTF-8 . If you want to know which charset you are using, you can type the following command: 

java -jar plantuml.jar -help

...
-charset xxx To use a specific charset (default is windows-1252)
...

If you want to use a different charset, for example UTF-8, you can use the -charset flag : 

java -jar plantuml.jar -charset UTF-8 ...

You can also find here information about unicode . Note that even if Java does not support B.O.M. (Byte Order Mark) in UTF-8 format file, a workaround has been put into PlantUML, so this should not be an issue.

日本語のようなアジア圏の文字を使用したところ、問題が発生しました。

Some Japanese users reported that they have to set the LANG variable to ja_JP.UTF-8 in their shell before launching PlantUML. 

export LANG = ja_JP.UTF-8

Since the new architecture, it should simply work, because Java knows how to draw East Asian characters.

EPS形式のファイルはどのようにして作成するのですか？

コマンドラインにて -eps フラグを入力するか、ANT タスクにて format="eps" を指定してください。

XMI形式ファイルの対応状況は ?

現在、対応に向けて 取り組んで います。

Is @startuml needed in with -pipe flag ?

Short answer: You do have to use @startuml (or @startditaa/@startjcckit...) when starting a diagram.

Long answer:

The @startuml/@startditaa/@startjcckit is useful to determine the type of diagram (uml, ditaa, jcckit...), and because you can optionally put a filename after the @startXYZ. This also allows to have several diagrams inside the same file.

Earlier versions of PlantUML were not supporting ditaa or jcckit. When you use -pipe flag, since the diagram is generated to standard output, there could be only one diagram in the standard input. And there is no need to specify a filename. For all those reasons, @startuml was not needed when using -pipe flag at that time.

Latter, it has been decided to normalize this, and to impose @startXYZ everywhere, even with -pipe flag, because it was confusing for users. Unfortunately, since some existing scripts were already using the fact that @startuml is not needed in -pipe flag, it has been decided to keep this as a deprecated option, just to allow older scripts to run. We indeed do pay attention of ascending compatibility.

For newer scripts, you should not rely on this, and use @startXYZ/@endXYZ with the -pipe flag.

Under which license is PlantUML distributed ?

PlantUML is distributed under the GPL license.
You can print the license using the command line option: 

java -jar plantuml.jar -license

Or you can use the special diagram: 

@startuml
license
@enduml

私は GPL ライセンスなんて嫌いですよ！ 大っ嫌い！！

You can also use:

Those versions miss few features (DITAA for example), but are 100% able to generate UML diagrams.

You can print the license of these versions using the command line option: 

java -jar plantuml.jar -license

Or you can use the special diagram: 

@startuml
license
@enduml

Are images generated by PlantUML covered by the GPL/LGPL/ASL/EPL/MIT license ?

No, they are not.

Images (whatever their format : PNG, SVG...) generated by the execution of PlantUML are owned by the author of their corresponding sources code (that is, their textual description in PlantUML language).

Images generated by the execution of PlantUML are not considered as covered work. You can do whatever you want with them.

The generated images can then be used without any reference to the GPL/LGPL/ASL/EPL/MIT license. It is not even necessary to stipulate that they have been generated with PlantUML, although this will be appreciate by PlantUML team.

There is an exception : if the textual description in PlantUML language is also covered by some license (like the GPL/LGPL/ASL/EPL/MIT), then the generated images are logically covered by this license.

Can I redistribute the LGPL binary file PlantUML.jar and if there any constraints about it?

As long as you do not modify the Java source code and the jar file, you can integrate PlantUML.jar in your own closed source software.

The only constraint is that you have to mention somewhere in your own license or in your documentation that you are using PlantUML and that PlantUML is distributed under LGPL.

You can then even sell your software and earn money, without any other constraints (although donation will be appreciate in that case :-)

What it the license of the PlantUML syntax?

There are no license for the PlantUML syntax itself : this means that everybody can use it.

So you can use PlantUML comments into your own code : those comments are owned by yourself, and are not considered as covered work, and are not covered by the GPL/LGPL/APL/EPL/MIT license.

Only the current implementation (that is, PlantUML program) is licensed under GPL, LGPL, ASL, EPL or MIT. On the other hand note that the documentation (examples, notices, ...) published in the PlantUML website is copyrighted. But you can still write your own documentation.

I have a message "file not found" when running the Word Macro with Java 7!

You may have to properly set Environment Variables. To fix go into Windows Environment Variables settings and find these two variables:

Variable Name: PATH, Add to Value: ;C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin
Variable Name: CLASSPATH, Add to Value: ;C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\lib

If they do not exist, create new User Variables:

Variable Name: PATH, Add to Value: .;C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin.;
Variable Name: CLASSPATH, Add to Value: .;C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\lib.;

What does EmptySvgException mean ?

PlantUML is using Graphviz to generate some diagrams. So PlantUML is launching dot program and retrieve the information generated by dot as a SVG flow.

This message means that PlantUML is getting an empty flow from dot execution, and therefore cannot generate UML diagrams. There may be several reasons why this happens:

I have a message complaining about X11 or headless!

If you are running PlantUML on a linux server without graphical capability, you may have some error message:

Basically, this is because PlantUML needs to have access to some graphical resources (more information here). You can turn PlantUML to headless mode, using the flag -Djava.awt.headless=true. For example: 

/usr/bin/java -Djava.awt.headless=true -jar /data/PlantUml/plantuml.jar ...

I have an UnsatisfiedLinkError under Mac OS X !

Under Mac OS X, if you have some error message like: 

Error java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError / liblwawt.dylib /libosxapp.dylib

You need to follow the instructions on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25914757/osx-yosemite-jvm-shared-library-does-not-contain-the-jni-createjavavm-symbol:

  1. Download and install the package: JavaForOSX.
  2. Found the file AptanaStidio3.ini, the file by default located under the directory here: /Applications/Aptana Studio 3/AptanaStudio3.app/Contents/MacOS
  3. Add -vm argument to specify the java which will be used to lunch Aptana Studio: -vm /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java

This seems to work only under Java 6, so you may define the following alias to be used in your scripts. 

alias java6="export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6.0)"

PlantUML scripts are grabbing keyboard/window focus!

Depending on your configuration, you can try the flag -Djava.awt.headless=true.
For example: 

/usr/bin/java -Djava.awt.headless=true -jar /path/to/plantuml.jar ...

I found an issue, but I cannot provide my diagram showing the issue because my diagram contains confidential data

There is a -cypher option the command line that generates a .preproc file instead of regular image file.

The .preproc generated file looks like the input diagram expect that all words (except PlantUML language keywords) have been replaced by a random set of letters.

You can double check this by running several time the -cypher option (you will get a different text each time). You may also look at the Cypher.java class used to execute this transformation to be sure that there are no backdoor there to retrieve back your original diagram.

If there is an issue in your original diagram, the same issue is likely to also occur with the cyphered one. Since the cyphered text is really meaningless, you can safely share it with us : there will be no way for us to guess what you are really working on.

But we will be able to reproduce the issue and fix it so that you can have your original (and confidential) diagram working.

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