Manuel Wimmer

Formal specification and testing of model transformations

In this paper we present some of the key issues involved in model transformation specification and testing, discuss and classify some of the existing approaches, and introduce the concept of Tract, a generalization of model transformation contracts. We show how Tracts can be used for model transformation specification and black-box testing, and the kinds of analyses they allow. Some representative examples are used to illustrate this approach.

An introduction to model versioning

With the emergence of model-driven engineering (MDE), software models are considered as central artifacts in the software engineering process, going beyond their traditional use as sketches. In MDE, models rather act as the single source of information for automatically generating executable software. This shift poses several new research challenges. One of these challenges constitutes model versioning, which targets at enabling efficient team-based development of models. This compelling challenge induced a very active research community, who yielded remarkable methods and techniques ranging from model differencing to merging of models. n nIn this tutorial, we give an introduction to the foundations of model versioning, the underlying technologies for processing models and their evolution, as well as the state of the art in model versioning. Thereby, we aim at equipping students and researchers alike that are new to this domain with enough information for commencing to contribute to this challenging research area.

A posteriori operation detection in evolving software models

Highlights ► Detection of applications of composite operations in evolving software models. ► Automatic generation of detection rules from executable operation specifications. ► Real-world study showing that 70% of all applied composite operations can be detected. ► Performance analysis showing that detection algorithm scales well for large models.

Towards a model transformation intent catalog

We report on our ongoing effort to build a catalog of model transformation intents that describes common uses of model transformations in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and the properties they must or may possess. We present a preliminary list of intents and common properties. One intent (transformation for analysis) is described in more detail and the description is used to identify transformations with the same intent in a case study on the use of MDE techniques for the development of control software for a power window.

Towards xMOF: executable DSMLs based on fUML

When defining a domain-specific modeling language (DSML), the two key components that have to be specified are its syntax and semantics. For specifying a modeling languages abstract syntax, metamodels are the standard means. MOF provides a standardized, well established, and widely accepted metamodeling language enabling the definition of metamodels and the generation of accompanying modeling facilities. However, no such standard means exist for specifying the behavioral semantics of a DSML. This hampers the efficient development of model execution facilities, such as debugging, simulation, and verification. To overcome this limitation, we propose to integrate fUML with MOF to enable the specification of the behavioral semantics for DSMLs in terms of fUML activities. We discuss alternatives how this integration can be achieved and show by-example how to specify the semantics of a DSML using fUML. To reuse existing runtime infrastructures, we further demonstrate the usage of external libraries in fUML-based specifications.

Viewpoint co-evolution through coarse-grained changes and coupled transformations

Multi-viewpoint modeling is an effective technique to deal with the ever-growing complexity of large-scale systems. The evolution ofmulti-viewpoint system specifications is currently accomplished in terms of fine-grained atomic changes. Apart from being a very low-level and cumbersome strategy, it is also quite unnatural to system modelers, who think of model evolution in terms of coarse-grained high-level changes. In order to bridge this gap, we propose an approach to formally express and manipulate viewpoint changes in a high-level fashion, by structuring atomic changes into coarse-grained composite ones. These can also be used to formally define reconciling operations to adapt dependent views, using coupled transformations. We introduce a modeling language based on graph transformations and Maude for expressing both, the coarse-grained changes and the coupled transformations that propagate them to reestablish global consistency. We demonstrate the applicability of the approach by its application in the context of RM-ODP.

Systematic evolution of WebML models by coupled transformations

Model-driven Web Engineering is an effective approach for improving the development of Web applications by providing appropriate abstraction mechanisms and different viewpoints. However, maintaining existing Web models still presents some significant research challenges. In particular, maintenance and evolution tasks are based on fine-grained atomic changes, and there is no automated reconciliation support for change propagation among viewpoints. In this paper we present an approach based on coupled transformations to ease the evolution of content models and the corresponding reconciliation of dependent hypertext models. The approach is illustrated by using the well-known ExtractClass refactoring for WebML models.

Towards tracking "guilty" transformation rules: a requirements perspective

Several approaches for specifying the requirements for model transformations have been proposed. Most of them define constraints on source and target models as well as on the relationships between them. A major advantage of these approaches is their independence from transformation implementation languages and transformation implementations. However, when these constraints are used for testing, identifying the model transformation rules that violate the constraints is not possible. In this paper we present an approach for automatically aligning specifications of model transformations and their implementations. Matching functions establish these alignments based on the used metamodel elements in the constraints and rules. We present our first results and outline further use cases where an alignment between constraints and rules is beneficial.

Generic vs. Language-Specific Model Versioning: Adaptability to the Rescue

In this paper, we discuss how to make a generic model versioning system language-specific by using various adaptation techniques. In particular, we recap some lessons learned during the AMOR project and outline some open challenges for adaptable model versioning systems.