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A semi-formal description of migrating domain-specific models with evolving domains

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Abstract

One of the main advantages of defining a domain-specific modeling language (DSML) is the flexibility to adjust the language definition to changing requirements or in response to a deeper understanding of the domain. With the industrial applications of domain-specific modeling environments, models are valuable investments. If the modeling language evolves, these models must be seamlessly migrated to the evolved DSML. Although the changes stemming from the language evolution are not abrupt in nature, migrating existing models to a new language is still a challenging task. Our solution is the Model Change Language (MCL) tool set, which defines a DSML to describe the migration rules and then performs the model migration automatically. In this paper, we describe the precise semantics of MCL and its execution, along with the confluence of the migration.

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Acknowledgments

This work was sponsored by DARPA, under its Software Producibility Program. The views and conclusions presented are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official policies or endorsements of DARPA or the US government. Approved for Public Release, Distribution Unlimited.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

    Tihamer Levendovszky, Daniel Balasubramanian, Anantha Narayanan, Feng Shi, Chris van Buskirk & Gabor Karsai

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  1. Tihamer Levendovszky
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  2. Daniel Balasubramanian
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  3. Anantha Narayanan
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  4. Feng Shi
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  5. Chris van Buskirk
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  6. Gabor Karsai
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tihamer Levendovszky.

Additional information

Communicated by Dr. D. Tamzalit, B. Schtz, D. Deridder and A. Pierantonio.

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Levendovszky, T., Balasubramanian, D., Narayanan, A. et al. A semi-formal description of migrating domain-specific models with evolving domains. Softw Syst Model 13, 807–823 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-012-0313-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-012-0313-5

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