Empirical evaluation of the conjunct use of MOF and OCL

International audienceMOF and OCL are commonly used for metamodeling: MOF to model the domain structure, and OCL for the well-formedness rules. Thus, metamodelers have to master both formalisms and understand how to articulate them in order to build metamodels that accurately capture domain knowledge. A systematic empirical analysis of the conjunct use of MOF and OCL in existing metamodels could help metamodelers un- derstand how to use these formalisms. However, existing metamodels usually present anomalies that prevent automatic analysis without prior fixing. In particular, it often happens that both parts of the metamodel (MOF and OCL) are inconsistent. In this paper, we propose a process for analyzing metamodels and we report on the pre-processing phase we went through on 52 metamodels in order to get them ready for automatic empirical analysis

Constraint validation support in visual model transformation systems

Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) standardized by OMG facilitates to separate the platform independent part and the platform specific part of a system model. Due to this separation Platform-Independent Model (PIM) can be reused across several implementation platforms of the system. Platform-Specific Model (PSM) is ideally generated automatically from PIM via model transformation steps. Because of the appearance of high level languages, object-oriented technologies and CASE tools, metamodeling becomes more and more important. Metamodeling is one of the most central techniques both in design of visual languages, and reuse existing domains by extending the metamodel level. The creation of model compliers on a metamodeling basis is illustrated by a software package called Visual Modeling and Transformation System (VMTS), which is an n-layer multipurpose modeling and metamodel-based transformation system. VMTS is able to realize an MDA model compiler. This paper (i) addresses the relationship between the constraints enlisted in metamodel-based rewriting rules and the pre- and postconditions, (ii) it introduces the concepts of general validation, general preservation and general guarantee, which facilitate that if a transformation step is specified adequately with the help of constraints, and the step has been executed successfully for the input model, then the generated output model is in accordance with the expected result, which is described by the transformation step refined with the constraints. An illustrative case study based on constraint specification in rewriting rules is also provided

Proceedings of the MoDELS'05 Workshop on Tool Support for OCL and Related Formalisms -- Needs and Trends

This Technical Report comprises the final versions of the technical papers presented at the workshop 'Tool Support for OCL and Related Formalisms -- Needs and Trends' held in Montego Bay (Jamaica), October 4, 2005. The workshop was co-located with the ACM/IEEE 8th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MoDELS)