XML to annotations mapping definition with patterns

Currently, the most commonly created formal languages are configuration languages. So far source code annotations and XML are the leading notations for configuration languages. In this paper, we analyse the correspondence between these two formats. We show that there are typical XML to annotations mapping solutions (mapping patterns) that indicate a correspondence between embedded and external metadata formats in general. We argue that mapping patterns facilitate creating configuration tools and we use a case study to show how they can be used to devise a mapping between these two notations.