3,238 research outputs found
Avoiding Unnecessary Information Loss: Correct and Efficient Model Synchronization Based on Triple Graph Grammars
Model synchronization, i.e., the task of restoring consistency between two
interrelated models after a model change, is a challenging task. Triple Graph
Grammars (TGGs) specify model consistency by means of rules that describe how
to create consistent pairs of models. These rules can be used to automatically
derive further rules, which describe how to propagate changes from one model to
the other or how to change one model in such a way that propagation is
guaranteed to be possible. Restricting model synchronization to these derived
rules, however, may lead to unnecessary deletion and recreation of model
elements during change propagation. This is inefficient and may cause
unnecessary information loss, i.e., when deleted elements contain information
that is not represented in the second model, this information cannot be
recovered easily. Short-cut rules have recently been developed to avoid
unnecessary information loss by reusing existing model elements. In this paper,
we show how to automatically derive (short-cut) repair rules from short-cut
rules to propagate changes such that information loss is avoided and model
synchronization is accelerated. The key ingredients of our rule-based model
synchronization process are these repair rules and an incremental pattern
matcher informing about suitable applications of them. We prove the termination
and the correctness of this synchronization process and discuss its
completeness. As a proof of concept, we have implemented this synchronization
process in eMoflon, a state-of-the-art model transformation tool with inherent
support of bidirectionality. Our evaluation shows that repair processes based
on (short-cut) repair rules have considerably decreased information loss and
improved performance compared to former model synchronization processes based
on TGGs.Comment: 33 pages, 20 figures, 3 table
Transformation As Search
In model-driven engineering, model transformations are con- sidered a key element to generate and maintain consistency between re- lated models. Rule-based approaches have become a mature technology and are widely used in different application domains. However, in var- ious scenarios, these solutions still suffer from a number of limitations that stem from their injective and deterministic nature. This article pro- poses an original approach, based on non-deterministic constraint-based search engines, to define and execute bidirectional model transforma- tions and synchronizations from single specifications. Since these solely rely on basic existing modeling concepts, it does not require the intro- duction of a dedicated language. We first describe and formally define this model operation, called transformation as search, then describe a proof-of-concept implementation and discuss experiments on a reference use case in software engineering
A Solution to the Flowgraphs Case Study using Triple Graph Grammars and eMoflon
After 20 years of Triple Graph Grammars (TGGs) and numerous actively
maintained implementations, there is now a need for challenging examples and
success stories to show that TGGs can be used for real-world bidirectional
model transformations. Our primary goal in recent years has been to increase
the expressiveness of TGGs by providing a set of pragmatic features that allow
a controlled fallback to programmed graph transformations and Java.
Based on the Flowgraphs case study of the Transformation Tool Contest (TTC
2013), we present (i) attribute constraints used to express complex
bidirectional attribute manipulation, (ii) binding expressions for specifying
arbitrary context relationships, and (iii) post-processing methods as a black
box extension for TGG rules. In each case, we discuss the enabled trade-off
between guaranteed formal properties and expressiveness. Our solution,
implemented with our metamodelling and model transformation tool eMoflon
(www.emoflon.org), is available as a virtual machine hosted on Share.Comment: In Proceedings TTC 2013, arXiv:1311.753
Bidirectional Transformation "bx" (Dagstuhl Seminar 11031)
Bidirectional transformations bx are a mechanism for maintaining the
consistency of two (or more) related sources of information. Researchers from
many different areas of computer science including databases (DB), graph
transformations (GT), software engineering (SE), and programming languages (PL)
are actively investigating the use of bx to solve a diverse set of
problems. Although researchers have been actively working on bidirectional
transformations in the above mentioned communities for many years already, there
has been very little cross-discipline interaction and cooperation so far. The
purpose of a first International Meeting on Bidirectional Transformations (GRACE-BX), held in December 2008 near Tokyo, was therefore to bring together international elites, promising young researchers, and leading practitioners to share problems, discuss solutions, and open a dialogue towards understanding the common underpinnings of bx in all these areas. While the GRACE-BX meeting provided a starting point for exchanging ideas in different communities and confirmed our believe that there is a considerable overlap of studied problems and developed solutions in the identified communities, the Dagstuhl Seminar 11031 on ``Bidirectional Transformations\u27\u27 also aimed at providing a place for working together to define a common vocabulary of terms and desirable properties of bidirectional transformations, develop a suite of
benchmarks, solve some challenging problems, and launch joint efforts to form a
living bx community of cooperating experts across the identified
subdisciplines. This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl
Seminar 11031 with abstracts of tutorials, working groups, and presentations on
specific research topics
Feature-Based Classification of Bidirectional Transformation Approaches
International audienceBidirectional model transformation is a key technology in model-driven engineering (MDE), when two models that can change over time have to be kept constantly consistent with each other. While several model transformation tools include at least a partial support to bidirectionality, it is not clear how these bidirectional capabilities relate to each other and to similar classical problems in computer science, from the view update problem in databases to bidirectional graph transformations. This paper tries to clarify and visualize the space of design choices for bidirectional transformations from an MDE point of view, in the form of a feature model. The selected list of existing approaches are characterized by mapping them to the feature model. Then, the feature model is used to highlight some unexplored research lines in bidirectional transformations
Understanding bidirectional transformations with TGGs and JTL
In Model-Driven Engineering bidirectional model transformations emerged as an important ingredient to cope with scenarios such as change propagation, synchronization and to keep consistent system views whenever changes occurring on some view have to be propagated over the others. However, bidirectional mappings open a number of intricate issues that have been only partially solved by research.This paper identifies a set of features characterizing bidirectional transformations and validates them against two existing approaches. In particular, a scenario based on the UML2RDBMS transformation and consisting of two different configurations is implemented by means of two different approaches, such as Triple Graph Grammars and the Janus Transformation Language, for understanding bidirectional transformations with respect to the elicited features
Implicit Incremental Model Analyses and Transformations
When models of a system change, analyses based on them have to be reevaluated in order for the results to stay meaningful. In many cases, the time to get updated analysis results is critical. This thesis proposes multiple, combinable approaches and a new formalism based on category theory for implicitly incremental model analyses and transformations. The advantages of the implementation are validated using seven case studies, partially drawn from the Transformation Tool Contest (TTC)
Towards Consistency Management for a Business-Driven Development of SOA
The usage of the Service Oriented Architecture
(SOA) along with the Business Process Management has emerged
as a valuable solution for the complex (business process driven)
system engineering. With a Model Driven Engineering where the
business process models drive the supporting service component
architectures, less effort is gone into the Business/IT alignment
during the initial development activities, and the IT developers
can rapidly proceed with the SOA implementation. However, the
difference between the design principles of the emerging domainspecific
languages imposes serious challenges in the following
re-design phases. Moreover, enabling evolutions on the business
process models while keeping them synchronized with the underlying
software architecture models is of high relevance to the key
elements of any Business Driven Development (BDD). Given a
business process update, this paper introduces an incremental
model transformation approach that propagates this update
to the related service component configurations. It, therefore,
supports the change propagation among heterogenous domainspecific
languages, e.g., the BPMN and the SCA. As a major
contribution, our approach makes model transformation more
tractable to reconfigure system architecture without disrupting its
structural consistency. We propose a synchronizer that provides
the BPMN-to-SCA model synchronization with the help of the
conditional graph rewriting
Towards the Co-Evolution of Models and Artefacts of Industrial Tools Through External Views
Modern software systems comprise multiple models. When these models are changed, interdependent models must be evolved accordingly. Manually managing this co-evolution of models is tedious and error-prone. Moreover, other interdependent artefacts, such as persisted states of industrial software applications, must co-evolve accordingly. Automated consistency preservation allows for efficiently managing the co-evolution of models. However, while state-of-the-art approaches operate delta-based, typical software applications persist changes state-based without conforming to explicit metamodels. Additionally, software applications may persist changes infrequently, even though interdependent models might be concurrently modified. As such, current approaches are insufficient for artefacts of industrial tools. To address these issues, we propose an approach for the co-evolution of models and artefacts of industrial tools by treating these artefacts as external views on the models
- …