A formal framework to prove the correctness of model driven engineering composition operators

International audienceCurrent trends in system engineering combine modeling, composition and verification technologies in order to harness their ever growing complexity. Each composition operator dedicated to a different modeling concern should be proven to be property preserving at assembly time. These proofs are usually burdensome with repetitive aspects. Our work targets the factorisation of these aspects relying on primitive generic composition operators used to express more sophisticated language specific ones. These operators are defined for languages expressed with OMG MOF metamodeling technologies. The proof are done with the Coq proof assistant relying on the Coq4MDE framework defined previously. These basic operators, Union and Substitution, are illustrated using the MOF Package Merge as composition operator and the preservation of model conformance as verified property

Modern Fortran Transformation Rules for UML Sequence Diagrams

Recently, reverse engineering has been widely adopted as a valuable process for extracting system abstractions and design information from existing software systems. The proposed research will focus on ForUML, a reverse engineering tool developed to extract UML diagrams from modern, objectoriented Fortran code, which are still used by scientists and engineering application developers. The first version of ForUML produces only UML class diagrams, which provide a useful window into the static structure of a program, including the make-up of each class and the relationships between classes. Rather than visualizing class diagrams, the developers need to understand class behavior and interactions between classes. UML sequence diagrams provide such important algorithmic information. Therefore, we proposed rules for transforming object-oriented Fortran into UML sequence diagrams with the goal to extend the ability of ForUML. The proposed rules were designed by Atlas Transformation Language. We believe that the contribution of this work would enhance the development, maintenance practices, decision processes, and communications in the scientific software community worldwide

Comparing transformation languages for the implementation of certified model transformations

Precise specifications are needed for verifying and certifying the correct behavior of critical systems. However, traditional proofreading and test based verification techniques are usually not exhaustive and as systems become more complex, their coverage is less and less adequate. Use of models allows early verification, validation and automated building of "correct by construction" systems. Our work targets formal specification and verification of model transformations. In a previous paper we tackled the problem of writing formal speci- fications for model transformations independently to the implementation technique. In this paper we investigate the implementation phase of these specifications as model transforma- tions using traditional MDE techniques and the difficulties encountered while generating the verification materials

Essay on Semantics Definition in MDE. An Instrumented Approach for Model Verification

International audienceIn the context of MDE (Model-Driven Engineering), our objective is to define the semantics for a given DSL (Domain Specific Language) either to simulate its models or to check properties on them using model-checking techniques. In both cases, the purpose is to formalize the DSL semantics as it is known by the DSL designer but often in an informal way. After several experiments to define operational semantics on the one hand, and translational semantics on the other hand, we discuss both approaches and we specify in which cases these semantics seem to be judicious. As a second step, we introduce a pragmatic and instrumented approach to define a translational semantics and to validate it against a reference operational semantics expressed by the DSL designer. We apply this approach to the xSPEM process description language in order to verify process models

Workshop proceedings of the 1st workshop on quality in modeling

Quality assessment and assurance constitute an important part of software engineering. The issues of software quality management are widely researched and approached from multiple perspectives and viewpoints. The introduction of a new paradigm in software development – namely Model Driven Development (MDD) and its variations (e.g., MDA [Model Driven Architecture], MDE [Model Driven Engineering], MBD [Model Based Development], MIC [Model Integrated Computing]) – raises new challenges in software quality management, and as such should be given a special attention. In particular, the issues of early quality assessment, based on models at a high abstraction level, and building (or customizing the existing) prediction models for software quality based on model metrics are of central importance for the software engineering community. The workshop is continuation of a series of workshops on consistency that have taken place during the subsequent annual UML conferences and recently MDA-FA. The idea behind this workshop is to extend the scope of interests and address a wide spectrum of problems related to MDD. It is also in line with the overall initiative of the shift from UML to MoDELS. The goal of this workshop is to gather researchers and practitioners interested in the emerging issues of quality in the context of MDD. The workshop is intended to provide a premier forum for discussions related to software quality and MDD. And the aims of the workshop are: - Presenting ongoing research related to quality in modeling in the context of MDD, - Defining and organizing issues related to quality in the MDD. The format of the workshop consists of two parts: presentation and discussion. The presentation part is aimed at reporting research results related to quality aspects in modeling. Seven papers were selected for the presentation out of 16 submissions; the selected papers are included in these proceedings. The discussion part is intended to be a forum for exchange of ideas related to understanding of quality and approaching it in a systematic way

Workshop proceedings of the 1st workshop on quality in modeling

Quality assessment and assurance constitute an important part of software engineering. The issues of software quality management are widely researched and approached from multiple perspectives and viewpoints. The introduction of a new paradigm in software development – namely Model Driven Development (MDD) and its variations (e.g., MDA [Model Driven Architecture], MDE [Model Driven Engineering], MBD [Model Based Development], MIC [Model Integrated Computing]) – raises new challenges in software quality management, and as such should be given a special attention. In particular, the issues of early quality assessment, based on models at a high abstraction level, and building (or customizing the existing) prediction models for software quality based on model metrics are of central importance for the software engineering community. The workshop is continuation of a series of workshops on consistency that have taken place during the subsequent annual UML conferences and recently MDA-FA. The idea behind this workshop is to extend the scope of interests and address a wide spectrum of problems related to MDD. It is also in line with the overall initiative of the shift from UML to MoDELS. The goal of this workshop is to gather researchers and practitioners interested in the emerging issues of quality in the context of MDD. The workshop is intended to provide a premier forum for discussions related to software quality and MDD. And the aims of the workshop are: - Presenting ongoing research related to quality in modeling in the context of MDD, - Defining and organizing issues related to quality in the MDD. The format of the workshop consists of two parts: presentation and discussion. The presentation part is aimed at reporting research results related to quality aspects in modeling. Seven papers were selected for the presentation out of 16 submissions; the selected papers are included in these proceedings. The discussion part is intended to be a forum for exchange of ideas related to understanding of quality and approaching it in a systematic way

Model Transformation Languages with Modular Information Hiding

Model transformations, together with models, form the principal artifacts in model-driven software development. Industrial practitioners report that transformations on larger models quickly get sufficiently large and complex themselves. To alleviate entailed maintenance efforts, this thesis presents a modularity concept with explicit interfaces, complemented by software visualization and clustering techniques. All three approaches are tailored to the specific needs of the transformation domain

Model Transformation Languages with Modular Information Hiding

Model transformations, together with models, form the principal artifacts in model-driven software development. Industrial practitioners report that transformations on larger models quickly get sufficiently large and complex themselves. To alleviate entailed maintenance efforts, this thesis presents a modularity concept with explicit interfaces, complemented by software visualization and clustering techniques. All three approaches are tailored to the specific needs of the transformation domain

Combining formal verification environments and model-driven engineering

Les méthodes formelles (comme les prouveurs interactifs) sont de plus en plus utilisées dans la vérification de logiciels critiques. Elles peuvent compter sur leurs bases formelles solides ainsi que sur leurs sémantiques précises. Cependant, elles utilisent des notations complexes qui sont souvent difficiles à comprendre. D'un autre côté, l'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles nous propose des langages de descriptions, comme les diagrammes de classes, utilisant des notations intuitives mais qui souffrent d'un manque de bases formelles. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons de faire interagir les deux domaines complémentaires que sont les méthodes formelles et l'ingénierie dirigée par les modèles. Nous proposons une approche permettant de transformer des types de données fonctionnels (utilisés dans les prouveurs interactifs) en diagrammes de classes et vice-versa. Afin d'atteindre ce but, nous utilisons une méthode de transformation dirigée par les modèles.Formal methods (such as interactive provers) are increasingly used in the verification of critical software. This is so because they rely on their strong formal basis and precise semantics. However, they use complex notations that are often difficult to understand. On the contrary, the tools and formalisms provided by Model Driven Engineering offer more attractive syntaxes and use intuitive notations. However, they suffer from a lack of formal foundations. In this thesis, we are interested in combining these two complementary domains that are formal methods and Model Driven Engineering. We propose an approach allowing to translate functional data types (used in interactive provers) into class diagrams and vice versa. To achieve this goal, we use a model-driven transformation method