Tobias Rötschke

MOFLON: a standard-compliant metamodeling framework with graph transformations

The crucial point in Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is that software and system development are based on abstract models that are successively transformed into more specific models, ideally resulting in the desired system. To this end, developers must be enabled to model different aspects like structure, behavior, consistency constraints of the system. This results in a variety of related models, which in turn need tool support on the metalevel. However, there is a lack of tools offering uniform support for metamodel definition, analysis, transformation, and integration. In this paper we present the metamodeling framework MOFLON that addresses these issues by bringing together the latest OMG standards with graph transformations and their formal semantics. MOFLON provides a combination of visual and textual notations and offers powerful modularization concepts. Using MOFLON, developers can generate code for specific tools needed to perform the desired modeling tasks.

Metamodel-based tool integration with moflon

Nowadays, a typical software development process involves many developers which participate in the development process by using a wide variety of development tools. As a consequence, the data representing the project as a whole is distributed over different development tools. For the purpose of consistency, maintainability, and traceability it is an essential task to be aware of the relationships between semantic equivalent data in different tool repositories. The real-time systems Lab at the Technische Universitat Darmstadt performs research in the area of tool and metamodel integration to provide solutions to overcome this gap. In this demonstration we present the metamodeling framework MOFLON that addresses these issues by bringing together the latest OMG standards with graph transformations and triple graph grammars. Using MOFLON, developers can generate code for specific tools needed to perform analysis and transformation on one development tool or to incrementally integrate data of different modeling tools.

Re-engineering a Medical Imaging System Using Graph Transformations

This paper describes an evolutionary approach to reengineer a large medical imaging system using graph-transformations. The solution has been integrated into the ongoing development process within the organizational and cultural constraints of a productive industrial setting. We use graph transformations to model the original and the desired architecture, the mapping between architectural, implementation and design concepts, as well as related consistency rules. Violations are calculated every night and provided as continuous feedback to software architects and developers, so they can modify the system manually according to established procedures. With only a very limited global migration step and moderate changes and extensions to the existing procedures it was possible to improve the software architecture of the system, while new features still could be implemented and released in due time. Although this solution is dedicated to a concrete case, it is a starting point for a more generic approach.

MOSL: Composing a Visual Language for a Metamodeling Framework

As an increasing number of industrial software development projects adopt model-driven development technologies, there is an emerging need for analysis, transformation, and integration of models. In this paper, we propose MOSL, an integrated specification language composed of MOF 2.0, OCL 2.0, Fujaba SDM, and Triple Graph Grammars as a suitable metamodeling and specification language. This language is the basis of the MOFLON metamodeling framework, which is developed at our department

Metamodeling with MOFLON

The metamodeling tool MOFLON provides an integrated approach for the specification of a modeling languages abstract syntax, static and dynamic semantics especially for means of tool integration and further applications.

Temporal graph queries to support software evolution

Graph transformation techniques have already been used successfully by several research groups to support re-engineering of large legacy systems. Where others often aim at transforming the system to improve it, we advocate an evolutionary approach that embeds transformations within the ordinary development process and provides tool support to monitor the ongoing progress regularly. In this paper, we discuss how temporal graph queries based on Fujaba story diagrams can provide a natural means to express trend-oriented metrics and consistency rules that we identified in our industrial case studies. To this end, we discuss a first-order logic rather than operational interpretation of a graph queries and show how well-known temporal logic operators can be added to express rules over consecutive states of the same instance graph.

Applying Test Case Metrics in a Tool Supported Iterative Architecture and Code Improvement Process

In order to support an iterative architecture and code improvement process a dedicated code analysis tool has been developed. But introducing the process and the tool in a medium sized company is always accompanied by difficulties, like understanding improvement needs. We therefore decided to use test effort as the central communication metaphor for code complexity. Hence, we developed a metric suite to calculate the number of test cases needed for branch coverage and (modified) boundary interior test. This paper introduces the developed metrics and also presents a case study performed at a medium sized software company to evaluate our approach. The main part of this paper is dedicated to the interpretation and comparison of the metrics. Finally their application in an iterative code improvement process is investigated.

Creating Well-Structured Specifications in MOFLON

Considering the growing popularity of model-based development, specifications become more complex. As a consequence, graph-based modeling tools have to take measures to handle this complexity. In this paper, we present the metamodeling environment MOFLON which has been developed on top of the FUJABA Toolsuite during the last few years at our department. We focus one of MOFLONs strongest advantages, i.e. the realization of the abstraction and modularization features introduced by the recent UML 2.0 Infrastructure specification. The new concept of package merge allows to reuse and refine existing models without modifying the original. Subset and redefinition relationships become useful tools to refine associations due to the automatic propagation mechanism generated by the MOFLON code generator. We show how the user can organize large specifications using these concepts and how they effect graph transformation rules and code generation.