The goal of this paper is to investigate how such a pattern matching could be performed on models,including the definition of the input language as well as the elaboration of efficient matchingalgorithms. Design patterns can be considered reusable micro-architectures that contribute to anoverall system architecture. Frameworks are also closely related to design patterns. Componentsoffer the possibility to radically change the behaviors and services offered by an application bysubstitution or addition of new components, even a long time after deployment. Software testing isanother aspect of reliable development. Testing activities mainly consist in ensuring that a systemimplementation conforms to its specifications

Cristian GEORGESCU

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THE ANNALS OF "DUN    Ã    REA DE JOS" UNIVERSITY OF GALAŢI           FASCICLE I - 2005,     Economics and Applied Informatics, Year XI, ISSN 1584-0409          PATTERN  MATCHING  IN  MODELSCristian GEORGESCU“Dunărea de Jos” University of GalatiDepartment of Accounting and Economic Informaticscristian.georgescu@ugal.roThe goal of this paper is to investigate how such a pattern matching could be performed on models, including the definition of the input language as well as the elaboration of efficient matching algorithms. Design patterns can be considered reusable micro-architectures that contribute to an overall system architecture. Frameworks are also closely related to design patterns. Components offer the possibility to radically change the behaviors and services offered by an application by substitution or addition of new components, even a long time after deployment. Software testing is another aspect of reliable development. Testing activities mainly consist in ensuring that a system implementation conforms to its specifications.Keywords: metamodelling, pattern matching, model transformation.1. IntroductionAs models and model transformations are relevated to   first-class   artifacts   within   the   software development process, there is an increasing need to introduce   more   automatic   ways   of   searching models.One of the basic needs we have is the ability to perform efficient pattern matching at the model level.   This   is   indeed   usefull   for   instance   for performing refactorings on models.It  is  also  needed  when  we  want  to  do  aspect weaving at model level, the pattern being in this case the aspect pointcut, and the places where it matches, the joinpoints. Patterns can be expressed as model snippets with wildcards, and really are predicates over models. The   main   objective   is   to   develop   model-based methods and tools to help the software designer to obtain   a   certain   degree   of   confidence   in   the reliability of component in particular, investigating modeling languages allowing specification of both functional and non-functional aspects and which are to be deployed on distributed systems. The key problems are components modeling and the development of formal manipulation tools to refine the   design,   code   generation   and   test   activities. Components help reducing costs by allowing reuse of application frameworks and components instead of redeveloping applications. Components offer the possibility to radically change the behaviors and services offered by an application by substitution or addition of new components, even a long time after deployment.  The  validation  techniques  used  are based on complex simulations of models building on the standards in the considered domain.2. Design patternsThe research domain is the reliable and efficient design of software product lines by assembling software components described with the UML. A software system can be described like an graph with states, events and transitions. The main advantage of event structures is to represent at the same time concurrency and alternative in a partial order model and this is the reason for notations such as UML.The object-oriented approach is now widespread for the analysis, the design, and the implementation of software systems. Rooted in the idea of modeling, object-oriented analysis, design and implementation takes into account the incremental, iterative and evolutive nature of software development. In the object-oriented standard approach, objects are instances of classes. A class encapsulates a single abstraction   in   a   modular   way.   Large   software This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Prof. Vasile MAZILESCU Ph. D 115THE ANNALS OF "DUN    Ã    REA DE JOS" UNIVERSITY OF GALAŢI           FASCICLE I - 2005,     Economics and Applied Informatics, Year XI, ISSN 1584-0409          system are seldom developed from scratch, and maintenance activities represent a large share of the overall   development   effort.   Complexity   in   an object-oriented system is well known to be in the collaboration between objects, and large systems cannot be understood at the level of classes and objects. Still these complex collaborations are made of recurring patterns, called design patterns. Design patterns play many roles in the development process. Design patterns can be considered reusable micro-architectures  that   contribute  to  an   overall system architecture. Frameworks are also closely related to design patterns. An object-oriented software framework is made up of a set of related classes which can be specialized or instantiated to implement an application. It is a reusable   software   architecture   that   provides   the generic   structure   and   behavior   for   a   family   of software applications, along with a context which specifies their collaboration and use within a given domain. The framework is in charge of managing the bulk of the application, and the application programmer just provides various bits and pieces.3. Aspect oriented software developmentThe   aspect   oriented   modeling   (AOM)   approach provides  mechanisms  for  separating  crosscutting functionality   from   core   functionality   in   design models. Crosscutting functionality is described by aspect models and the core application functionality is described by a primary model. The integrated system view is obtained by composing the primary and aspect models. The technique is capable of detecting some conflicts that can arise during composition. Languages for aspect-oriented   programming   (AOP),   such   as AspectJ, are now popular, and the concepts used by the AOP community such as join points, pointcuts and advice are well-known. At   the   same   time,   in   recent   years,   the   aspect oriented software development (AOSD) approach has been developing itself beyond the programming activity.   More   particularly,   the   Early   Aspects Initiative advocates the management of crosscutting properties, i.e. aspects, at the early development stages of requirements engineering and architecture design to identify the impact of aspects as soon as possible. Some composition operators of aspects exist for these development stages, but they do not closely match   standard   AOP   concepts.   We   propose   an automatic   way   for   weaving   behavioural   aspects given as scenarios. With these kinds of behavioural modelling languages, aspect weaving cannot always be performed at the abstract syntax level.4. The metamodel semanticsThe   increasing   software   complexity   and   the reliability and reusability requirements fully justify this aproach. The main themes studied are reliable software   components   composition,   UML-based developments validation, and test generation from UML models.UML semantic variation points provide intentional degrees of freedom for the interpretation of the metamodel   semantics.   The   interest   of   semantic variation points is that UML now becomes a family of languages sharing lot of commonalities and some variabilities that one can customize for a given application domain. This works propose to reify the various   semantic   variation   points   of   UML   2.0 statecharts   into   models   of   their   own   to   avoid hardcoding the semantic choices in the tools.Where object-oriented languages deal with objects as described by classes, model-driven development uses models, as graphs of interconnected objects, described   by   metamodels.   A   number   of   new modeling languages have been and continue to be developed for this model-based paradigm, both for model transformation and for general programming using models. Many   of   these   use   single-object   approaches   to typing,  derived from solutions found in object-oriented systems, while others use metamodels as model   types,   but   without   a   clear   notion   of polymorphism. Both of these approaches lead to brittle and overly restrictive reuse characteristics. This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Prof. Vasile MAZILESCU Ph. D 116THE ANNALS OF "DUN    Ã    REA DE JOS" UNIVERSITY OF GALAŢI           FASCICLE I - 2005,     Economics and Applied Informatics, Year XI, ISSN 1584-0409          Object-oriented   meta-languages   such   as   MOF (Meta-Object   Facility)   are   increasingly   used   to specify domain-specific languages in the model-driven   engineering   community.   These   meta-languages focus on structural specifications and have   no   built-in   support   for   specifications   of operational semantics.This contribution presents a simple extension to object-oriented typing to better cater for a model-oriented context, including a simple strategy for typing models as a collection of interconnected objects.Reliability is an essential requirement in a context where a huge number of softwares (and sometimes several versions of the same program) may coexist in a big telecommunication network. On one hand, software should be able to evolve very fast, as new features or services are frequently added to existing ones, but on the other hand, the occurrence of a fault in a system can be very costly, and time consuming. A   lot   of   attention   should   then   be   paid   to interoperability, i.e. the ability for software to work properly with other. We think that formal methods may help solving this kind of problems. Note that formal methods should be   more   and   more   integrated   in   an   approach allowing system designer to build software globally, in   order   to   take   into   account   constraints   and objectives coming from user requirements. These methodologies are in their early years. A good example of such techniques is the object oriented approach, which is becoming more popular in the telecommunication world. Software   testing   is   another   aspect   of   reliable development. Testing activities mainly consist in ensuring that a system implementation conforms to its specifications. Whatever the efforts spent for development, this phase is of real importance to ensure that a system behaves properly in a complex environment.5. ConclusionsToday's   mainstream   approaches   build   on   the concept   of   component   based   software.   The assembly of these components makes it possible to build families of products made of many common parts, while remaining opened to new evolutions. As component based systems grow more complex and mission-critical, there is an increased need to be able to represent and reason on such assemblies of components. This   is   usually   done   by   building   models representing various aspects of such a product line, such as for example the functional variations, the structural aspects (object paradigm), of the dynamic aspects (languages of scenarios), without neglecting of course non-functional aspects like quality of service (performance, reliability, etc.) described in the   form   of   contracts,   or   the   characteristics   of deployment, which become even dominating in the field of reactive systems, which are often distributed and real-time. The key problems about components modeling and the development of formal manipulation tools is to refine the design. All studies about new techniques for the reliable construction of software product lines, especially for distributed and reactive software will be integrated in code generation and test activities in the software developer life cicle.A goal of this aproach is to explicitly connect research   results   to   industrial   problems   through technology   transfer   actions.   This   implies,   in particular,   taking   into   account   the   industrial standards   of   the   field,   namely   UML,   Corba Component   Model   (CCM),   Com+/.Net   and Enterprise JavaBeans. It will be at the frontier of two fields of software: the field of specification and formal proof of software, and that of design which, though informal, is organized around best practices (Design   Patterns   or   the   use   of   off-the-shelf components). The research activity focuses at the same time on development efficiency and reliability. The main applications of this research is clearly related to the This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Prof. Vasile MAZILESCU Ph. D 117THE ANNALS OF "DUN    Ã    REA DE JOS" UNIVERSITY OF GALAŢI           FASCICLE I - 2005,     Economics and Applied Informatics, Year XI, ISSN 1584-0409          telecommunication   domain,   and   mainly   concern reliable construction of communication software, and object oriented systems testing.We believe that the use of this techniques will make it possible to improve the transition between these two worlds, and will contribute to the fluidity of the processes of design, implementation and testing of software.References1. J.   BAYER,   S.   GÉRARD,   O.   HAUGEN,   J. MANSELL,   B.   MOLLER-PEDERSEN,   J. OLDEVIK, P. TESSIER, J.-P. THIBAULT, T. WIDEN. Families Research Book, LNCS, chap. A   Unified   Conceptual   Model   for   Product Family   Variability   Modelling,   no  to   be published, Springer Verlag, 20052. BENOIT  BAUDRY,   FRANCK  FLEUREY, ROBERT  FRANCE,   RAGHU  REDDY. Exploring   the   Relationshipbetween   Model Composition   and   Model   Transformation,   in "Aspect Oriented Modeling (AOM) Workshop.3. FRANCK  CHAUVEL,   JEAN-MARC JÉZÉQUEL.   Code   Generation   from   UML Models   with   Semantic   Variation   Points,   in "Proceedings of MODELS/UML’2005, Montego Bay, Jamaica", S. KENT  L. BRIAND  (editor). ,LNCS, October 2005.4. JEAN-MARC  JÉZÉQUEL.   Model   Driven Engineering   for   Distributed   Real   Time Embedded Systems, J.-P. BABAU S. GÉRARD (editor). , chap. Real Time Components and Contracts,   Hermes   Science   Publishing   Ltd, London, 2005.5. TRUNG  DINH-TRONG,   SUDIPTO  GHOSH, ROBERT  FRANCE,   BENOIT  BAUDRY, FRANCK FLEUREY. A Taxonomy of Faults for UML Designs, in "Model Design and Validation (MoDeVa) Workshop, Montego Bay, Jamaica", October 2005.6. SÉBASTIEN  GÉRARD, JEAN-MARIE  FAVRE, PIERRE-ALAIN  MULLER,   XAVIER  BLANC (editors).IDM05, Actes des 1ères Journées sur l’Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles, no ISBN 2-7261-1284-,http://planetmde.org/idm05/actes.pdf, Paris, June 2005.]This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Prof. Vasile MAZILESCU Ph. D 118

PATTERN MATCHING IN MODELS

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