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Model synchronization based on triple graph grammars: correctness, completeness and invertibility

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Abstract

Triple graph grammars (TGGs) have been used successfully to analyze correctness and completeness of bidirectional model transformations, but a corresponding formal approach to model synchronization has been missing. This paper closes this gap by providing a formal synchronization framework with bidirectional update propagation operations. They are generated from a given TGG, which specifies the language of all consistently integrated source and target models. As our main result, we show that the generated synchronization framework is correct and complete, provided that forward and backward propagation operations are deterministic. Correctness essentially means that the propagation operations preserve and establish consistency while completeness ensures that the operations are defined for all possible inputs. Moreover, we analyze the conditions under which the operations are inverse to each other. All constructions and results are motivated and explained by a running example, which leads to a case study, using concrete visual syntax and abstract syntax notation based on typed attributed graphs.

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Notes

  1. The backward case is similar.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by: (1) the Ontario Research Fond’s Research Excellence Project on Model-Integrated Software Service Engineering; (2) the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 61202071 and No. 61121063.; (3) the CICYT project (ref. TIN2007-66523) and by the AGAUR grant to the research group ALBCOM (ref. 00516) and; (4) the Fonds National de la Recherche, Luxembourg (3968135).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability and Trust, Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

    Frank Hermann, Susann Gottmann & Thomas Engel

  2. Institut für Softwaretechnik und Theoretische Informatik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Hartmut Ehrig

  3. Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

    Fernando Orejas

  4. Generative Software Development Lab, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

    Krzysztof Czarnecki & Zinovy Diskin

  5. Key Laboratory of High Confidence Software Technologies (Peking University), Ministry of Education, Beijing, China

    Yingfei Xiong

  6. Institute of Software, School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yingfei Xiong

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  1. Frank Hermann
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  2. Hartmut Ehrig
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  3. Fernando Orejas
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  4. Krzysztof Czarnecki
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  5. Zinovy Diskin
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  6. Yingfei Xiong
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  7. Susann Gottmann
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Frank Hermann or Yingfei Xiong.

Additional information

Communicated by Prof. Tony Clark and Prof. Jon Whittle.

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Hermann, F., Ehrig, H., Orejas, F. et al. Model synchronization based on triple graph grammars: correctness, completeness and invertibility. Softw Syst Model 14, 241–269 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-012-0309-1

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