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Automatic pattern-based consistency checking in model refactoring: introducing a formal behavioral preserving method

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Abstract

Evolution is one of the most important parts of the software development process. One of the negative consequences of software development is design erosion. Refactoring is a technique that aims to prevent this issue. Therefore, refactoring is an important software development process to promote software quality without changing its external behavior. Refactoring at the model level is the same as refactoring at the code level and has similar advantages, and the only difference is that refactoring at the model level, due to its formation over the initial steps of software development process, has a greater impact on cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Timely and consistent utilization of this procedure in a software project has extremely positive long-term impacts, especially when this is done by its technical tools. Then, refactoring will be a rapid, easy, and safe way to promote software system quality. The main idea of this study is the automatic checking of consistency in model refactoring in order to retain model behavior using Alloy modeling language. Thus, by employing structural and behavioral patterns as a reusable and well-defined component, as well as consistency rules, this objective can be achieved.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran

    Saeedeh Ghaedi Heidari & Shohreh Ajoudanian

  2. Big Data Research Center, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran

    Shohreh Ajoudanian

Authors
  1. Saeedeh Ghaedi Heidari
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  2. Shohreh Ajoudanian
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Correspondence to Shohreh Ajoudanian.

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Appendices

Appendix A

1.1 A-1 Most used symbols in Alloy

The most used symbols in Alloy are shown in Table 5.

Table 5 Most used symbols in Alloy
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1.2 A-2 Semantic of the identifiers of proposed formal model

See Table 6.

Table 6 Semantic of the identifiers of proposed formal model in Sect. 4
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1.3 A-3 Syntax of Alloy grammar

The complete syntax of Alloy grammar is as follows [23].

figure n

Appendix B

2.1 B-1 A sample instance in Alloy modeling language

An example of TotalDynamicConsistency proposition is presented in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6
figure 6

A sample instance in Alloy modeling language (automatically generated by Alloy Analyzer)

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Ghaedi Heidari, S., Ajoudanian, S. Automatic pattern-based consistency checking in model refactoring: introducing a formal behavioral preserving method. Innovations Syst Softw Eng 20, 65–84 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-022-00525-8

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