skip to main content
10.1145/3358501.3361236acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesdsmConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Mind the gap: lessons learned from translating grammars between MontiCore and Xtext

Published: 20 October 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Model-driven systems engineering relies on software languages that support different stakeholders. These languages often operate in different technological spaces. Checking consistency, tracing, and change propagation of models developed by different stakeholders, thus demands methods to bridge the gaps between these spaces. Research on the integration of heterogeneous software languages often considers heterogeneity within specific technological spaces only. We outline a systematic method to translate grammars between the technological spaces of the MontiCore and Xtext language workbench (LWB) and report observations on general grammar translation challenges. We have realized this translation in an automated toolchain and present lessons learned along the way. This can significantly facilitate bridging different technological spaces and, thus, improve model-driven systems engineering

References

[1]
Alexander Bergmayr and Manuel Wimmer. 2013. Generating Metamodels from Grammars by Chaining Translational and By-Example Techniques. CEUR Workshop Proceedings 1104 (01 2013), 22–31.
[2]
Erwan Bousse, Thomas Degueule, Didier Vojtisek, Tanja Mayerhofer, Julien Deantoni, and Benoit Combemale. 2016. Execution Framework of the GEMOC Studio (Tool Demo). In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 84–89.
[3]
Cédric Brun and Alfonso Pierantonio. 2008. Model Differences in the Eclipse Modeling Framework. UPGRADE, The European Journal for the Informatics Professional 9, 2 (2008), 29–34.
[4]
Arvid Butting, Nico Jansen, Bernhard Rumpe, and Andreas Wortmann. 2018. Translating Grammars to Accurate Metamodels. In International Conference on Software Language Engineering (SLE’18). ACM, 174–186.
[5]
Imke Drave, Timo Greifenberg, Steffen Hillemacher, Stefan Kriebel, Evgeny Kusmenko, Matthias Markthaler, Philipp Orth, Karin Samira Salman, Johannes Richenhagen, Bernhard Rumpe, Christoph Schulze, Michael Wenckstern, and Andreas Wortmann. 2019. SMArDT modeling for automotive software testing. Software: Practice and Experience (February 2019).
[6]
Robert Eikermann, Katrin Hölldobler, Alexander Roth, and Bernhard Rumpe. 2018. Reuse and Customization for Code Generators: Synergy by Transformations and Templates. In International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development. Springer, 34–55.
[7]
Katrin Hölldobler and Bernhard Rumpe. 2017. MontiCore 5 Language Workbench Edition 2017. Shaker Verlag.
[8]
Katrin Hölldobler, Bernhard Rumpe, and Andreas Wortmann. 2018. Software Language Engineering in the Large: Towards Composing and Deriving Languages. Computer Languages, Systems & Structures 54 (2018), 386–405.
[9]
Katrin Hölldobler, Bernhard Rumpe, and Andreas Wortmann. 2018. Software Language Engineering in the Large: Towards Composing and Deriving Languages. Computer Languages, Systems & Structures 54 (2018), 386–405.
[10]
John E. Hopcroft. 2008. Introduction to automata theory, languages, and computation. Pearson Education India, Delhi.
[11]
International Organization for Standardization. 1996. ISO / IEC 14977: 1996 (E). Information technology — Syntactic metalanguage — Extended BNF (1996).
[12]
Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo, Jesús Sánchez Cuadrado, and Jesús Garcıa Molina. 2008. Gra2MoL: A domain specific transformation language for bridging grammarware to modelware in software modernization. In Workshop on Model-Driven Software Evolution. 1–8.
[13]
Frédéric Jouault, Freddy Allilaire, Jean Bézivin, and Ivan Kurtev. 2008. ATL: A model transformation tool. Science of computer programming 72, 1-2 (2008), 31–39.
[14]
Lennart C. L. Kats and Eelco Visser. 2010. The Spoofax Language Workbench: Rules for Declarative Specification of Languages and IDEs. ACM sigplan notices 45, 10 (2010), 444–463.
[15]
Andreas Kunert. 2008. Semi-automatic Generation of Metamodels and Models From Grammars and Programs. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science 211 (2008), 111–119. Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Graph Transformation and Visual Modeling Techniques (GT-VMT 2006).
[16]
Bernhard Merkle. 2010. Textual modeling tools: overview and comparison of language workbenches. In Proceedings of the ACM international conference companion on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications companion. ACM, 139–148.
[17]
Claus Ballegaard Nielsen, Peter Gorm Larsen, John Fitzgerald, Jim Woodcock, and Jan Peleska. 2015. Systems of systems engineering: basic concepts, model-based techniques, and research directions. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) 48, 2 (2015), 18.
[18]
Arne Nordmann, Nico Hochgeschwender, and Sebastian Wrede. 2014. A survey on domain-specific languages in robotics. In International Conference on Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots. Springer, 195–206.
[19]
Jan Oliver Ringert, Alexander Roth, Bernhard Rumpe, and Andreas Wortmann. 2015. Language and Code Generator Composition for Model-Driven Engineering of Robotics Component & Connector Systems. Journal of Software Engineering for Robotics (2015), 33–57.
[20]
Bernhard Rumpe. 2016. Modeling with UML: Language, Concepts, Methods. Springer International.
[21]
Dave Steinberg, Frank Budinsky, Ed Merks, and Marcelo Paternostro. 2008. EMF: Eclipse Modeling Framework. Pearson Education, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240.
[22]
Dave Steinberg, Frank Budinsky, Ed Merks, and Marcelo Paternostro. 2008. EMF: eclipse modeling framework. Pearson Education.
[23]
Antoine Toulmé. 2006. Presentation of EMF Compare Utility. In Eclipse Modeling Symposium. Intalio Inc, Redwood City, CA 94065, USA, 1–8.
[24]
Edoardo Vacchi and Walter Cazzola. 2015. Neverlang: A framework for feature-oriented language development. Computer Languages, Systems & Structures 43 (2015), 1–40.
[25]
Eelco Visser. 2007. WebDSL: A case study in domain-specific language engineering. In International Summer School on Generative and Transformational Techniques in Software Engineering. Springer, 291–373.
[26]
Vladimir Viyović, Mirjam Maksimović, and Branko Perisić. 2014. Sirius: A rapid development of DSM graphical editor. In IEEE 18th International Conference on Intelligent Engineering Systems INES 2014. 233–238.
[27]
Markus Völter, Sebastian Benz, Christian Dietrich, Birgit Engelmann, Mats Helander, Lennart C L Kats, Eelco Visser, and Guido Wachsmuth. 2013. {DSL} Engineering - Designing, Implementing and Using DomainSpecific Languages. dslbook.org.
[28]
Manuel Wimmer and Gerhard Kramler. 2006. Bridging Grammarware and Modelware. In Satellite Events at the MoDELS 2005 Conference, Jean-Michel Bruel (Ed.). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 159–168.
[29]
Robert S. Wolf. 1998. Proof, Logic, and Conjecture the Mathematician’s Toolbox. (1998), 421.
[30]
Andreas Wortmann, Benoit Combemale, and Olivier Barais. 2017. A Systematic Mapping Study on Modeling for Industry 4.0. In 2017 ACM/IEEE 20th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS). IEEE, 281–291.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Towards Enabling Domain-Specific Modeling Language Exchange Between Modeling ToolsAdvances in Model and Data Engineering in the Digitalization Era10.1007/978-3-031-55729-3_8(89-103)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2024
  • (2022)Web-Based Tracing for Model-Driven Applications2022 48th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA)10.1109/SEAA56994.2022.00066(374-381)Online publication date: Aug-2022
  • (2021)Leveraging Model-Driven Technologies for JSON Artefacts: The Shipyard Case Study2021 ACM/IEEE 24th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS)10.1109/MODELS50736.2021.00033(250-260)Online publication date: Oct-2021
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Mind the gap: lessons learned from translating grammars between MontiCore and Xtext

      Recommendations

      Comments

      Information & Contributors

      Information

      Published In

      cover image ACM Conferences
      DSM 2019: Proceedings of the 17th ACM SIGPLAN International Workshop on Domain-Specific Modeling
      October 2019
      62 pages
      ISBN:9781450369848
      DOI:10.1145/3358501
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

      Sponsors

      Publisher

      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 20 October 2019

      Permissions

      Request permissions for this article.

      Check for updates

      Author Tags

      1. Domain-specific languages
      2. Grammar Translation
      3. Grammarware
      4. MontiCore
      5. Xtext

      Qualifiers

      • Research-article

      Conference

      SPLASH '19
      Sponsor:

      Acceptance Rates

      Overall Acceptance Rate 31 of 50 submissions, 62%

      Contributors

      Other Metrics

      Bibliometrics & Citations

      Bibliometrics

      Article Metrics

      • Downloads (Last 12 months)8
      • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1
      Reflects downloads up to 10 Feb 2025

      Other Metrics

      Citations

      Cited By

      View all
      • (2024)Towards Enabling Domain-Specific Modeling Language Exchange Between Modeling ToolsAdvances in Model and Data Engineering in the Digitalization Era10.1007/978-3-031-55729-3_8(89-103)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2024
      • (2022)Web-Based Tracing for Model-Driven Applications2022 48th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA)10.1109/SEAA56994.2022.00066(374-381)Online publication date: Aug-2022
      • (2021)Leveraging Model-Driven Technologies for JSON Artefacts: The Shipyard Case Study2021 ACM/IEEE 24th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS)10.1109/MODELS50736.2021.00033(250-260)Online publication date: Oct-2021
      • (2020)A compositional framework for systematic modeling language reuseProceedings of the 23rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems10.1145/3365438.3410934(35-46)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2020

      View Options

      Login options

      View options

      PDF

      View or Download as a PDF file.

      PDF

      eReader

      View online with eReader.

      eReader

      Figures

      Tables

      Media

      Share

      Share

      Share this Publication link

      Share on social media