12,922 research outputs found
Correctly Defined Concrete Syntax for Visual Modeling Languages
The syntax of modeling languages is usually defined in two steps. The abstract syntax identifies modeling concepts whereas the concrete syntax clarifies how these modeling concepts are rendered by visual and/or textual elements. While the abstract syntax is often defined in form of a metamodel there is no such standard format yet for concrete syntax definitions; at least as long as the concrete syntax is not purely text-based and classical grammar-based approaches are not applicable. In a previous paper, we proposed to extend the metamodeling approach also to concrete syntax definitions. In this paper, we present an analysis technique for our concrete syntax definitions that detects inconsistencies between the abstract and the concrete syntax of a modeling language. We have implemented our approach on top of the automatic decision procedure SIMPLIFY
On the role of domain ontologies in the design of domain-specific visual modeling langages
Domain-Specific Visual Modeling Languages should provide notations and abstractions that suitably support problem solving in well-defined application domains. From their user’s perspective, the language’s modeling primitives must be intuitive and expressive enough in capturing all intended aspects of domain conceptualizations. Over the years formal and explicit representations of domain conceptualizations have been developed as domain ontologies. In this paper, we show how the design of these languages can benefit from conceptual tools developed by the ontology engineering community
Meta-Packages: Painless Domain Specific Languages
Domain Specific Languages are used to provide a tailored modelling notation
for a specific application domain. There are currently two main approaches to
DSLs: standard notations that are tailored by adding simple properties; new
notations that are designed from scratch. There are problems with both of these
approaches which can be addressed by providing access to a small meta-language
based on packages and classes. A meta-modelling approach based on meta-packages
allows a wide range of DSLs to be defined in a standard way. The DSLs can be
processed using standard object-based extension at the meta-level and existing
tooling can easily be defined to adapt to the new languages. This paper
introduces the concept of meta-packages and provides a simple example
Formal Model Engineering for Embedded Systems Using Real-Time Maude
This paper motivates why Real-Time Maude should be well suited to provide a
formal semantics and formal analysis capabilities to modeling languages for
embedded systems. One can then use the code generation facilities of the tools
for the modeling languages to automatically synthesize Real-Time Maude
verification models from design models, enabling a formal model engineering
process that combines the convenience of modeling using an informal but
intuitive modeling language with formal verification. We give a brief overview
six fairly different modeling formalisms for which Real-Time Maude has provided
the formal semantics and (possibly) formal analysis. These models include
behavioral subsets of the avionics modeling standard AADL, Ptolemy II
discrete-event models, two EMF-based timed model transformation systems, and a
modeling language for handset software.Comment: In Proceedings AMMSE 2011, arXiv:1106.596
Correctly defined concrete syntax
Due to their complexity, the syntax of modern modeling languages is preferably defined in two steps. The abstract syntax identifies all modeling concepts whereas the concrete syntax should clarify how these concepts are rendered by graphical and/or textual elements. While the abstract syntax is often defined in form of a metamodel, there does not exist such standard format yet for concrete syntax definitions. The diversity of definition formats—ranging from EBNF grammars to informal text—is becoming a major obstacle for advances in modeling language engineering, including the automatic generation of editors. In this paper, we propose a uniform format for concrete syntax definitions. Our approach captures both textual and graphical model representations and even allows to assign more than one rendering to the same modeling concept. Consequently, following our approach, a model can have multiple, fully equivalent representations, but—in order to avoid ambiguities when reading a model representation—two different models should always have distinguishable representations. We call a syntax definition correct, if all well-formed models are represented in a non-ambiguous way. As the main contribution of this paper, we present a rigorous analysis technique to check the correctness of concrete syntax definition
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