Extending UML templates towards computability

UML templates allow the specification of generic model elements that can be reproduced in domain models by means of the Bind relationship. Binding to a template encompasses the substitution of that template’s parameters by compatible domain elements. The requirement of compatibility, however, is checked over by UML in a very permissive way. As a consequence, binding to a template can result in badly-formed models and non-computable expressions. Such option in the design of UML was certainly intentional and meant to allow for richer semantics for the Bind relationship, as the specialization of the concept is advised at several points of the standard. This paper proposes one such specialization. One that guarantees well-formedness and computability for elements bound to a template. This is achieved by introducing the concept of Functional Conformance, which is imposed between every template’s parameter and its application domain substitute. Functional conformance is defined in terms of well-formedness rules, expressed as OCL constraints on top of OMG’s UML metamodel.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

A demonstration of compilability for UML template instances

Because of the thin set of well-formedness rules associated to Templates in UML, ill-formed elements may result from bindings to templates. Although such ill-formedness is generally detected by some UML validation rule, the problem is poorly reported because it is not normally imputed to the binding. Typically, such problems are detected as non-compilable code in the template instances. A set of well-formedness rules, additional to those of the standard UML, was proposed as a way to ensure the compilability of instances and prevent this problem from occurring. Such set of constraints was proposed in a previous paper and named Functional Conformance, but a demonstration of its effectiveness was not yet provided. Such a demonstration is outlined in the current paper. Carrying out the demonstration revealed the need for two more rules than those previously envisioned for Functional Conformance.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

A Demonstration of compilability for UML template instances

Extended version of the paper: J. M. Farinha, "A Demonstration of Compilability for UML Template Instances", in Proc. of the 4th Int. Conf. on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development (MODELSWARD 2016), Slimane Hammoudi, Luis Ferreira Pires, Bran Selic, Philippe Desfray, Ed., Roma, Itália, SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, 2016, pp. 397-404.Because of the thin set of well-formedness rules associated to Templates in UML, ill-formed elements may result from well-formed bindings to templates. Although such ill-formedness is generally detected by some UML validation rule, the problem is poorly reported if the violated rule does not pertain to the Template construct. Typically, erroneous substitutions of template parameters will be misleadingly reported as compilation problems in the code of operations of the template’s instance. This paper demonstrates that a set of well-formedness rules, additional to those of the standard UML, prevents this problem from occurring. Such set of constraints was proposed in a previous paper and named Functional Conformance (FC), but a demonstration of its effectiveness was not provided. Such a demonstration is carried out in the current paper adopting UML Activities as the formalism to represent the dynamics of systems and their well-formedness rules as compilability criteria. Carrying out the demonstration revealed further rules than those previously proposed for FC