An automated Model-based Testing Approach in Software Product Lines Using a Variability Language.

This paper presents the application of an automated testing approach for Software Product Lines (SPL) driven by its state-machine and variability models. Context: Model-based testing provides a technique for automatic generation of test cases using models. Introduction of a variability model in this technique can achieve testing automation in SPL. Method: We use UML and CVL (Common Variability Language) models as input, and JUnit test cases are derived from these models. This approach has been implemented using the UML2 Eclipse Modeling platform and the CVL-Tool. Validation: A model checking tool prototype has been developed and a case study has been performed. Conclusions: Preliminary experiments have proved that our approach can find structural errors in the SPL under test. In our future work we will introduce Object Constraint Language (OCL) constraints attached to the input UML mode

Simplification of UML/OCL schemas for efficient reasoning

Ensuring the correctness of a conceptual schema is an essential task in order to avoid the propagation of errors during software development. The kind of reasoning required to perform such task is known to be exponential for UML class diagrams alone and even harder when considering OCL constraints. Motivated by this issue, we propose an innovative method aimed at removing constraints and other UML elements of the schema to obtain a simplified one that preserve the same reasoning outcomes. In this way, we can reason about the correctness of the initial artifact by reasoning on a simplified version of it. Thus, the efficiency of the reasoning process is significantly improved. In addition, since our method is independent from the reasoning engine used, any reasoning method may benefit from it.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Verifying UML/OCL operation contracts

In current model-driven development approaches, software models are the primary artifacts of the development process. Therefore, assessment of their correctness is a key issue to ensure the quality of the final application. Research on model consistency has focused mostly on the models' static aspects. Instead, this paper addresses the verification of their dynamic aspects, expressed as a set of operations defined by means of pre/postcondition contracts. This paper presents an automatic method based on Constraint Programming to verify UML models extended with OCL constraints and operation contracts. In our approach, both static and dynamic aspects are translated into a Constraint Satisfaction Problem. Then, compliance of the operations with respect to several correctness properties such as operation executability or determinism are formally verified

Lightweight and static verification of UML executable models

Executable models play a key role in many software development methods by facilitating the (semi)automatic implementation/execution of the software system under development. This is possible because executable models promote a complete and fine-grained specification of the system behaviour. In this context, where models are the basis of the whole development process, the quality of the models has a high impact on the final quality of software systems derived from them. Therefore, the existence of methods to verify the correctness of executable models is crucial. Otherwise, the quality of the executable models (and in turn the quality of the final system generated from them) will be compromised. In this paper a lightweight and static verification method to assess the correctness of executable models is proposed. This method allows us to check whether the operations defined as part of the behavioural model are able to be executed without breaking the integrity of the structural model and returns a meaningful feedback that helps repairing the detected inconsistencies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Semantics Through Pictures: towards a diagrammatic semantics for object-oriented modelling notations

An object-oriented (OO) model has a static component, the set of allowable snapshots or system states, and a dynamic component, the set of filmstrips or sequences of snapshots. Diagrammatic notations, such as those in UML, each places constraints on the static and/or dynamic models. A formal semantics of OO modeling notations can be constructed by providing a formal description of (i) sets of snapshots and filmstrips, (ii) constraints on those sets, and (iii) the derivation of those constraints from diagrammatic notations. In addition, since constraints are contributed by many diagrams for the same model, a way of doing this compositionally is desirable. One approach to the semantics is to use first-order logic for (i) and (ii), and theory inclusion with renaming, as in Larch, to characterize composition. A common approach to (iii) is to bootstrap: provide a semantics for a kernel of the notation and then use the kernel to give a semantics to the other notations. This only works if a kernel which is sufficiently expressive can be identified, and this is not the case for UML. However, we have developed a diagrammatic notation, dubbed constraint diagrams, which seems capable of expressing most if not all static and dynamic constraints, and it is proposed that this be used to give a diagrammatic semantics to OO models

Analyzing Consistency of Behavioral REST Web Service Interfaces

REST web services can offer complex operations that do more than just simply creating, retrieving, updating and deleting information from a database. We have proposed an approach to design the interfaces of behavioral REST web services by defining a resource and a behavioral model using UML. In this paper we discuss the consistency between the resource and behavioral models that represent service states using state invariants. The state invariants are defined as predicates over resources and describe what are the valid state configurations of a behavioral model. If a state invariant is unsatisfiable then there is no valid state configuration containing the state and there is no service that can implement the service interface. We also show how we can use reasoning tools to determine the consistency between these design models.Comment: In Proceedings WWV 2012, arXiv:1210.578

Clafer: Lightweight Modeling of Structure, Behaviour, and Variability

Embedded software is growing fast in size and complexity, leading to intimate mixture of complex architectures and complex control. Consequently, software specification requires modeling both structures and behaviour of systems. Unfortunately, existing languages do not integrate these aspects well, usually prioritizing one of them. It is common to develop a separate language for each of these facets. In this paper, we contribute Clafer: a small language that attempts to tackle this challenge. It combines rich structural modeling with state of the art behavioural formalisms. We are not aware of any other modeling language that seamlessly combines these facets common to system and software modeling. We show how Clafer, in a single unified syntax and semantics, allows capturing feature models (variability), component models, discrete control models (automata) and variability encompassing all these aspects. The language is built on top of first order logic with quantifiers over basic entities (for modeling structures) combined with linear temporal logic (for modeling behaviour). On top of this semantic foundation we build a simple but expressive syntax, enriched with carefully selected syntactic expansions that cover hierarchical modeling, associations, automata, scenarios, and Dwyer's property patterns. We evaluate Clafer using a power window case study, and comparing it against other notations that substantially overlap with its scope (SysML, AADL, Temporal OCL and Live Sequence Charts), discussing benefits and perils of using a single notation for the purpose

Contracts and Behavioral Patterns for SoS: The EU IP DANSE approach

This paper presents some of the results of the first year of DANSE, one of the first EU IP projects dedicated to SoS. Concretely, we offer a tool chain that allows to specify SoS and SoS requirements at high level, and analyse them using powerful toolsets coming from the formal verification area. At the high level, we use UPDM, the system model provided by the british army as well as a new type of contract based on behavioral patterns. At low level, we rely on a powerful simulation toolset combined with recent advances from the area of statistical model checking. The approach has been applied to a case study developed at EADS Innovation Works.Comment: In Proceedings AiSoS 2013, arXiv:1311.319

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