Recovering Sequence Diagrams from Object-oriented Code

Software modernization is a current research area in the software industry intended to transform an existing software system to a new one satisfying new demands. The initiative Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM) helps software developers in tackling reverse engineering, software evolution and, software modernization in general. To support modernization problems, the ADM Task Force has defined a set of metamodels such as KDM (Knowledge Discovery Metamodel), being the Eclipse-MDT MoDisco project the official support for software modernization. We propose the application of ADM principles to provide relevant model-based views on legacy systems. We describe a framework to reverse engineering models from object-oriented code. In this context, we show how to recover UML sequence diagrams from Java code. We validate our approach by using ADM standards and MoDisco platform. Our research can be considered a contribution to the MoDisco community; MoDisco does not support reverse engineering of sequence diagrams and, on the other hand, the MoDisco KDM Discover was used and enriched to obtain the required information for recovering interaction diagrams

A Model Driven Approach to the Analysis of Timeliness Properties

Abstract. The need for a design language that is rigorous but accessible and intuitive is often at odds with the formal and mathematical nature of languages used for analysis. UML and Petri Nets are a good example of this dichotomy. UML is a widely accepted modelling language capable of modelling the structural and behavioural aspects of a system. However UML lacks the mathematical foundation that is required for rigorous analysis. Petri Nets on the other hand have a strong mathematical base that is well suited for analysis of a system but lacks the appeal and ease-of-use of UML. Design in UML languages such as Sequence Diagrams and analysis in Petri Nets require on one hand some expertise in potentially two incompatible systems and their tools, and on the other a seamless transition from one system to the other. One way of addressing this impediment is to focus the software development mainly on the design language system and to facilitate the transition to the formal analysis by means of a combination of automation and tool support. The aim of this paper is to present a transformation system, which takes UML Sequence Diagrams augmented with time constraints and generates semantically equivalent Petri Nets that preserve the timing requirements. A case study on a small network is used in order to illustrate the proposed approach and in particular the design, the transformation and the analysis processes.

Supporting Automatic Interoperability in Model-Driven Development Processes

By analyzing the last years of software development evolution, it is possible to observe that the involved technologies are increasingly focused on the definition of models for the specification of the intended software products. This model-centric development schema is the main ingredient for the Model-Driven Development (MDD) paradigm. In general terms, the MDD approaches propose the automatic generation of software products by means of the transformation of the defined models into the final program code. This transformation process is also known as model compilation process. Thus, MDD is oriented to reduce (or even eliminate) the hand-made programming, which is an error-prone and time-consuming task. Hence, models become the main actors of the MDD processes: the models are the new programming code. In this context, the interoperability can be considered a natural trend for the future of model-driven technologies, where different modeling approaches, tools, and standards can be integrated and coordinated to reduce the implementation and learning time of MDD solutions as well as to improve the quality of the final software products. However, there is a lack of approaches that provide a suitable solution to support the interoperability in MDD processes. Moreover, the proposals that define an interoperability framework for MDD processes are still in a theoretical space and are not aligned with current standards, interoperability approaches, and technologies. Thus, the main objective of this doctoral thesis is to develop an approach to achieve the interoperability in MDD processes. This interoperability approach is based on current metamodeling standards, modeling language customization mechanisms, and model-to-model transformation technologies. To achieve this objective, novel approaches have been defined to improve the integration of modeling languages, to obtain a suitable interchange of modeling information, and to perform automatic interoperability verification.Giachetti Herrera, GA. (2011). Supporting Automatic Interoperability in Model-Driven Development Processes [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/11108Palanci

A Catalog of Reusable Design Decisions for Developing UML/MOF-based Domain-specific Modeling Languages

In model-driven development (MDD), domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) act as a communication vehicle for aligning the requirements of domain experts with the needs of software engineers. With the rise of the UML as a de facto standard, UML/MOF-based DSMLs are now widely used for MDD. This paper documents design decisions collected from 90 UML/MOF-based DSML projects. These recurring design decisions were gained, on the one hand, by performing a systematic literature review (SLR) on the development of UML/MOF-based DSMLs. Via the SLR, we retrieved 80 related DSML projects for review. On the other hand, we collected decisions from developing ten DSML projects by ourselves. The design decisions are presented in the form of reusable decision records, with each decision record corresponding to a decision point in DSML development processes. Furthermore, we also report on frequently observed (combinations of) decision options as well as on associations between options which may occur within a single decision point or between two decision points. This collection of decision-record documents targets decision makers in DSML development (e.g., DSML engineers, software architects, domain experts).Series: Technical Reports / Institute for Information Systems and New Medi

Extensibility Interaction Flow Modeling Language Metamodels to Develop New Web Application Concerns

Web engineering is a systematic approach to develop web applications, and numerous web engineering methods have been proposed. These methods were extended through defining new models by using different mechanisms to capture the web application concepts. Due to the complexity rising of web applications, the web engineering methods cannot provide web solutions anymore. Even though Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) is recently proposed as a new method for developing web applications, it has limitations. Therefore these methods need to be improved. In this paper, we present the ability of IFML extensibility to support new concerns from web applications. Moreover, we extend IFML through UML mechanisms to support new concerns from the context to the user interface. The new IFML solves the lack of context web application through defining a new model and becomes a new direction to develop concerns modern web applications

Web Services-Enhanced Agile Modeling and Integrating Business Processes

In a global business context with continuous changes, the enterprises have to enhance their operational efficiency, to react more quickly, to ensure the flexibility of their business processes, and to build new collaboration pathways with external partners. To achieve this goal, they must use e-business methods, mechanisms and techniques while capitalizing on the potential of new information and communication technologies. In this context, we propose a standards, model and Web services-based approach for modeling and integrating agile enterprise business processes. The purpose is to benefit from Web services characteristics to enhance the processes design and realize their dynamic integration. The choice of focusing on Web services is essentially justified by their broad adoption by enterprises as well as their capability to warranty interoperability between both intra and inter-enterprises systems. Thereby, we propose in this chapter a metamodel for describing business processes, and discuss their dynamic integration by addressing the Web services discovery issue. On the one hand, the proposed metamodel is in line with the W3C Web services standards, namely, WSDL, SAWSDL and WS-Policy. It considers the use of BPMN standard to describe the behavioral aspect of business processes and completes their design using UML diagrams describing their functional, non-functional and semantic aspects. On other hand, our approach for integrating processes is in line with BPEL standard recommended to orchestrate Web services. To realize executable business processes, this approach recommends the use of semantic matching and selection mechanisms in order to produce agile systems.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, Book chapte

Meta, tracer - MOF with traceability

The following document proposes a traceability solution for model-driven development. There as been already previous work done in this area, but so far there has not been yet any standardized way for exchanging traceability information, thus the goal of this project developed and documented here is not to automatize the traceability process but to provide an approach to achieve traceability that follows OMG standards, making traceability information exchangeable between tools that follow the same standards. As such, we propose a traceability meta-model as an extension of MetaObject Facility (MOF)1. Using MetaSketch2 modeling language workbench, we present a modeling language for traceability information. This traceability information then can be used for tool cooperation. Using Meta.Tracer (our tool developed for this thesis), we enable the users to establish traceability relationships between different traceability elements and offer a visualization for the traceability information. We then demonstrate the benefits of using a traceability tool on a software development life cycle using a case study. We finalize by commenting on the work developed.Orientador: Leonel Nóbreg