Allow the endpoints of an existing IRPLink to be changed through the Java API, as IRPDependency already allows.

IRPLink exposes eight accessors to read its two endpoints:
getFrom() getFromElement() getFromPort() getFromSysMLPort()
getTo() getToElement() getToPort() getToSysMLPort()

None of them has a counterpart that writes. The only setters declared on IRPLink are setEnd1Name(String), setEnd1Multiplicity(String), setEnd2Name(String), setEnd2Multiplicity(String) and setInstantiates(IRPRelation). The first four take a String, so they set the label and the multiplicity of an association end. None of them can designate which element the link connects to.

IRPDependency, the comparable relation type, already provides what we are asking for:

void setDependent(IRPModelElement)
void setDependsOn(IRPModelElement)

Both are relations between two model elements. One can be re-pointed programmatically, the other cannot.

Why we need this

An application that maintains a Rhapsody model programmatically has to bring existing links in line with a changed specification. Reading the endpoints works, so such an application can detect that a link no longer matches what it should be. It cannot correct it in place.

The only sequence available today is to delete the link and create a new one. That produces a link with the right endpoints, but it is a different element. It has a new GUID, it loses its tags, and it is absent from every diagram in which the previous link had been placed and laid out. Manual diagram work is lost, and the API offers no way to restore it.

The gap is therefore not about convenience. A correction that should be invisible to the user destroys work the user did by hand.

Who benefits

Anyone driving Rhapsody from the Java API: synchronising a model with an external source of truth, migration and refactoring scripts, round trip with another authoring tool, and automated consistency checks that aim to fix what they find rather than only report it.

How it should work

Endpoint setters on IRPLink, symmetrical with IRPDependency:

void setFromPort(IRPPort)              void setToPort(IRPPort)
void setFromSysMLPort(IRPSysMLPort)    void setToSysMLPort(IRPSysMLPort)

Or, if re-pointing has to be atomic, a single call taking both ends:

void setEnds(IRPModelElement fromPort, IRPModelElement toPort)

The property that matters is identity preservation: the link keeps its GUID, its tags and its existing diagram representations. That is exactly what setDependent and setDependsOn already provide for dependencies.