Abstract
The automated execution of model transformation plays a key role within Model Driven Development. The software that executes a transformation, commonly known as a transformation engine, receives the meta-models of the source and destination, and a set of transformation rules as input. Then the engine can be used to convert instances of the source meta-model to produce a destination model. Transformation engines are often seen as black boxes. In order to be sure of the correct execution, it is crucial to understand how a transformation engine executes a given transformation. This paper presents a method of capturing and analysing the activities carried out within the transformation engine by elaborating on existing tracing mechanisms used by existing engines. We compare the tracing mechanisms involved in four popular, rule-based transformation frameworks and highlight their shortcomings. A new trace meta-model is presented to deal with some of these shortcomings. These processes can be applied to all existing frameworks; as a proof of concept we have extended an existing traceability framework, based on our earlier work, to implement these mechanisms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aizenbud-Reshef, N., et al.: Model traceability. IBM Systems Journal 45 (2006)
Akehurst, D.H., Bordbar, B., Evans, M.J., Howells, W.G.J., McDonald-Maier, K.D.: SiTra: simple transformations in java. In: Wang, J., Whittle, J., Harel, D., Reggio, G. (eds.) MoDELS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4199, pp. 351–364. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Alwanain, M., Bordbar, B., Küster, J., Bowles, F.: Automated Composition of Sequence Diagrams via Alloy. MODELSWARD (2014)
Bordbar, B., Howells, G., Evans, M., Staikopoulos, A.: Model transformation from OWL-S to BPEL Via SiTra. In: Akehurst, D.H., Vogel, R., Paige, R.F. (eds.) ECMDA-FA. LNCS, vol. 4530, pp. 43–58. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Bowles, J., Meedeniya, D.: Formal Transformation from Sequence Diagrams to Coloured Petri Nets. In: 2010 17th Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC) (2010)
Briand, L., et al.: Traceability and SysML design slices to support safety inspections: a controlled experiment. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol. 23 (2014)
Claypool, K.T., Rundensteiner, E.A.: Gangam: a transformation modeling framework. In: 2003. (DASFAA 2003) Proceedings Eighth International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (2003)
Czarnecki, K., Helsen, S.: Feature-based survey of model transformation approaches. IBM Systems Journal 45 (2006)
Ebner, G., Kaindl, H.: Tracing all around in reengineering. IEEE Software 19 (2002)
Eclipse Foundation. Xtend (2014). URL: http://www.eclipse.org/xtend/ (visited on 03/04/2015)
Fritzsche, M. et al.: Application of Tracing Techniques in Model-Driven Performance Engineering. In: 4th ECMDA Traceability Workshop (2008)
Galvao, I., Goknil, A.: Survey of traceability approaches in model-driven engineering. In: 2007 EDOC 2007 11th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (2007)
Geepalla, E., Bordbar, B., Last, J.: Transformation of spatio-temporal role based access control specification to alloy. In: Abelló, A., Bellatreche, L., Benatallah, B. (eds.) MEDI 2012. LNCS, vol. 7602, pp. 67–78. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Jouault, F.: Loosely coupled traceability for ATL. In: Proceedings of the European Conference on Model Driven Architecture (ECMDA) Workshop on Traceability (2005)
Jouault, F., Kurtev, I.: Transforming models with ATL. In: Bruel, J.-M. (ed.) MoDELS 2005. LNCS, vol. 3844, pp. 128–138. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R.F., Polack, F.A.C.: The Epsilon Transformation Language. In: Vallecillo, A., Gray, J., Pierantonio, A. (eds.) ICMT 2008. LNCS, vol. 5063, pp. 46–60. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Mäder, P.: Interactive traceability querying and visualization for coping with development complexity. In: CoRR (2013)
OMG. Meta Object Facility (MOF) 2.0 Query View Transformation Specification Version 1.1., Jan. 2011. URL: http://www.omg.org/spec/QVT/1.1/PDF/ (visited on 03/04/2015)
Paige, R.F., et al.: Building model-driven engineering traceability classifications. In: 4th ECMDA Traceability Workshop (2008)
Santiago, I., Vara, J.M., de Castro, V., Marcos, E.: Measuring the effect of enabling traces generation in ATL model transformations. In: Filipe, J., Maciaszek, L.A. (eds.) ENASE 2013. CCIS, vol. 417, pp. 229–240. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)
Shah, S.M.A., Anastasakis, K., Bordbar, B.: From UML to alloy and back again. In: Ghosh, S. (ed.) MODELS 2009. LNCS, vol. 6002, pp. 158–171. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
The Apache Software Foundation. Apache HBase (2014). URL: http://hbase.apache.org/ (visited on 03/05/2015)
Vara, J.M., et al.: Dealing with traceability in the MDDof model transformations. In: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 40 (2014)
Varró, D., Balogh, A.: The model transformation language of the VIATRA2 framework. Science of Computer Programming 68 (2007)
Willink, E.D., Matragkas, N.: QVT Traceability: What does it really mean? (2014). URL: http://www.eclipse.org/mmt/qvt/docs/ICMT2014/QVTtraceability.pdf (visited on 03/04/2015)
Wood, S.K., et al.: A model-driven development approach to mapping UML state diagrams to synthesizable VHDL. IEEE Transactions on Computers 57 (2008)
Yie, A., Wagelaar, D.: Advanced Traceability for ATL. In: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Model Transformation with ATL (MtATL 2009) (2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Saxon, J.T., Bordbar, B., Akehurst, D.H. (2015). Opening the Black-Box of Model Transformation. In: Taentzer, G., Bordeleau, F. (eds) Modelling Foundations and Applications. ECMFA 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9153. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21151-0_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21151-0_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21150-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21151-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)