Metamodel-based model conformance and multiview consistency checking

Model-driven development, using languages such as UML and BON, often makes use of multiple diagrams (e.g., class and sequence diagrams) when modeling systems. These diagrams, presenting different views of a system of interest, may be inconsistent. A metamodel provides a unifying framework in which to ensure and check consistency, while at the same time providing the means to distinguish between valid and invalid models, that is, conformance. Two formal specifications of the metamodel for an object-oriented modeling language are presented, and it is shown how to use these specifications for model conformance and multiview consistency checking. Comparisons are made in terms of completeness and the level of automation each provide for checking multiview consistency and model conformance. The lessons learned from applying formal techniques to the problems of metamodeling, model conformance, and multiview consistency checking are summarized

Testing M2T/T2M Transformations

Presentado en: 16th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2013). Del 29 de septiembre al 4 de octubre. Miami, EEUU.Testing model-to-model (M2M) transformations is becoming a prominent topic in the current Model-driven Engineering landscape. Current approaches for transformation testing, however, assume having explicit model representations for the input domain and for the output domain of the transformation. This excludes other important transformation kinds, such as model-to-text (M2T) and text-to-model (T2M) transformations, from being properly tested since adequate model representations are missing either for the input domain or for the output domain. The contribution of this paper to overcome this gap is extending Tracts, a M2M transformation testing approach, for M2T/T2M transformation testing. The main mechanism we employ for reusing Tracts is to represent text within a generic metamodel. By this, we transform the M2T/T2M transformation specification problems into equivalent M2M transformation specification problems. We demonstrate the applicability of the approach by two examples and present how the approach is implemented for the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF). Finally, we apply the approach to evaluate code generation capabilities of several existing UML tools.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Proyecto TIN2011-2379

Metamodel Instance Generation: A systematic literature review

Modelling and thus metamodelling have become increasingly important in Software Engineering through the use of Model Driven Engineering. In this paper we present a systematic literature review of instance generation techniques for metamodels, i.e. the process of automatically generating models from a given metamodel. We start by presenting a set of research questions that our review is intended to answer. We then identify the main topics that are related to metamodel instance generation techniques, and use these to initiate our literature search. This search resulted in the identification of 34 key papers in the area, and each of these is reviewed here and discussed in detail. The outcome is that we are able to identify a knowledge gap in this field, and we offer suggestions as to some potential directions for future research.Comment: 25 page

A graph-based aspect interference detection approach for UML-based aspect-oriented models

Aspect Oriented Modeling (AOM) techniques facilitate separate modeling of concerns and allow for a more flexible composition of these than traditional modeling technique. While this improves the understandability of each submodel, in order to reason about the behavior of the composed system and to detect conflicts among submodels, automated tool support is required. Current techniques for conflict detection among aspects generally have at least one of the following weaknesses. They require to manually model the abstract semantics for each system; or they derive the system semantics from code assuming one specific aspect-oriented language. Defining an extra semantics model for verification bears the risk of inconsistencies between the actual and the verified design; verifying only at implementation level hinders fixng errors in earlier phases. We propose a technique for fully automatic detection of conflicts between aspects at the model level; more specifically, our approach works on UML models with an extension for modeling pointcuts and advice. As back-end we use a graph-based model checker, for which we have defined an operational semantics of UML diagrams, pointcuts and advice. In order to simulate the system, we automatically derive a graph model from the diagrams. The result is another graph, which represents all possible program executions, and which can be verified against a declarative specification of invariants.\ud To demonstrate our approach, we discuss a UML-based AOM model of the "Crisis Management System" and a possible design and evolution scenario. The complexity of the system makes con°icts among composed aspects hard to detect: already in the case of two simulated aspects, the state space contains 623 di®erent states and 9 different execution paths. Nevertheless, in case the right pruning methods are used, the state-space only grows linearly with the number of aspects; therefore, the automatic analysis scales

A heuristic-based approach to code-smell detection

Encapsulation and data hiding are central tenets of the object oriented paradigm. Deciding what data and behaviour to form into a class and where to draw the line between its public and private details can make the difference between a class that is an understandable, flexible and reusable abstraction and one which is not. This decision is a difficult one and may easily result in poor encapsulation which can then have serious implications for a number of system qualities. It is often hard to identify such encapsulation problems within large software systems until they cause a maintenance problem (which is usually too late) and attempting to perform such analysis manually can also be tedious and error prone. Two of the common encapsulation problems that can arise as a consequence of this decomposition process are data classes and god classes. Typically, these two problems occur together – data classes are lacking in functionality that has typically been sucked into an over-complicated and domineering god class. This paper describes the architecture of a tool which automatically detects data and god classes that has been developed as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The technique has been evaluated in a controlled study on two large open source systems which compare the tool results to similar work by Marinescu, who employs a metrics-based approach to detecting such features. The study provides some valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the two approache

Meta-model Pruning

Large and complex meta-models such as those of Uml and its profiles are growing due to modelling and inter-operability needs of numerous\ud stakeholders. The complexity of such meta-models has led to coining\ud of the term meta-muddle. Individual users often exercise only a small\ud view of a meta-muddle for tasks ranging from model creation to construction\ud of model transformations. What is the effective meta-model that represents\ud this view? We present a flexible meta-model pruning algorithm and\ud tool to extract effective meta-models from a meta-muddle. We use\ud the notion of model typing for meta-models to verify that the algorithm\ud generates a super-type of the large meta-model representing the meta-muddle.\ud This implies that all programs written using the effective meta-model\ud will work for the meta-muddle hence preserving backward compatibility.\ud All instances of the effective meta-model are also instances of the\ud meta-muddle. We illustrate how pruning the original Uml metamodel\ud produces different effective meta-models

A UML Profile for Security and Code Generation

Recently, many research studies have suggested the integration of safety engineering at an early stage of modeling and system development using Model-Driven Architecture (MDA). This concept consists in deploying the UML (Unified Modeling Language) standard as aprincipal metamodel for the abstractions of different systems. To our knowledge, most of this work has focused on integrating security requirements after the implementation phase without taking them into account when designing systems. In this work, we focused our efforts on non-functional aspects such as the business logic layer, data flow monitoring, and high-quality service delivery. Practically, we have proposed a new UML profile for security integration and code generation for the Java platform. Therefore, the security properties will be described by a UML profile and the OCL language to verify the requirements of confidentiality, authorization, availability, data integrity, and data encryption. Finally, the source code such as the application security configuration, the method signatures and their bodies, the persistent entities and the security controllers generated from sequence diagram of system’s internal behavior after its extension with this profile and applying a set of transformations

Generating Effective Test Suites for Model Transformations Using Classifying Terms

Generating sample models for testing a model transformation is no easy task. This paper explores the use of classifying terms and stratified sampling for developing richer test cases for model transformations. Classifying terms are used to define the equivalence classes that characterize the relevant subgroups for the test cases. From each equivalence class of object models, several representative models are chosen depending on the required sample size. We compare our results with test suites developed using random sampling, and conclude that by using an ordered and stratified approach the coverage and effectiveness of the test suite can be significantly improved.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech