Towards Transformation from UML to Event-B

Abstract

UML is one of the most widely used modeling languages for software development. It provides unique metamodels to describe systems in the form of graphics, which makes the whole modeling process visual and easy to handle. However, UML is a semi-formal language. The lack of precise semantics may lead to difficulties in automatic model verification. To address this problem, a general idea is to transform UML models to formal models. Event-B is a formal language with precise semantics and rigorous verification. Current research work has showed the feasibility of transformation from UML to Event-B, and some transformation approaches of class diagrams and state machine diagrams have already been proposed. In this paper, a transformation approach from UML activity diagrams to Event-B models is presented, including the basic mapping relation and transformation of two types of activity flow.