The JavaTM Metadata Interface (JMI) Specificiation implements a dynamic, platform-neutral infrastructure that enables the creation, storage, access, discovery, and exchange of metadata. JMI is based on the Meta Object Facility (MOF) specification from the Object Management Group (OMG), an industry-endorsed standard for metadata management. The MOF standard consists of a base UML model and a set of interface definition language (IDL) interfaces. The MOF specification provides a programming mechanism that allows applications to query a metamodel at run time to determine the structure and semantics of the modeled system. JMI is a Java technology mapping of the MOF IDL interfaces that will allow Java components and applications to access and manipulate metadata. Using JMI, applications and tools which specify their metamodels using MOF-compliant UML can have the Java interfaces to the models automatically generated. Further, metamodel and metadata interchange via XML is also automatically enabled by JMI's use of the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) specification.