Formal integration of inheritance with typed attributed graph transformation for efficient VL definition and model manipulation

Abstract

Several approaches exist to define a visual language (VL). Among those the meta-modeling approach used to define the Unified Modeling Language (UML), and the graph transformation approach are very popular. Especially the combination of both, using meta-modeling to define the syntax of a VL and graph transformation for specifying model transformations has been considered conceptually and explored in a number of applications. A formal integration of both approaches has just been started by integrating classical algebraic graph grammars with a node type inheritance concept. In this paper, the integration of inheritance is extending to attributed graph transformation. More precisely, we define attributed type graphs with inheritance leading to a formal integration of inheritance with typed attributed graph transformation.