Generating database access code from domain models

Abstract

Automatic processing of requirements (e.g. to generate code) remains a challenge in contemporary software development. Requirements are still treated as secondary artifacts by software developers, as they are written in natural languages which causes ambiguity. In this paper, we present an approach to generate working code from requirements through applying precisely formulated domain models. As the source, we use the Requirements Specification Language (RSL) which is a precise constrained language, based on a central domain model composed of domain notions. These notions are linked from use case scenarios and create a form of a `wiki'. Notions are graphically visualized in RSL, and resemble UML classes with attributes. Notions can be used in phrases that can represent various operations used within use case scenarios. In our approach we introduce model transformation algorithms that allow to generate database access code associated with operations to persist (store, retrieve) data in a database system. To focus our work, we present code generated for Hibernate which is an object relational mapping framework.