Modular language product lines: concept, tool and analysis

IF 2 3区计算机科学 Q3 COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Software and Systems Modeling Pub Date : 2024-05-28 DOI:10.1007/s10270-024-01179-9

Juan de Lara, Esther Guerra, Paolo Bottoni

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Modelling languages are intensively used in paradigms like model-driven engineering to automate all tasks of the development process. These languages may have variants, in which case the need arises to deal with language families rather than with individual languages. However, specifying the syntax and semantics of each language variant separately in an enumerative way is costly, hinders reuse across variants, and may yield inconsistent semantics between variants. Hence, we propose a novel, modular and compositional approach to describing product lines of modelling languages. It enables the incremental definition of language families by means of modules comprising meta-model fragments, graph transformation rules, and rule extensions. Language variants are configured by selecting the desired modules, which entails the composition of a language meta-model and a set of rules defining its semantics. This paper describes: a theory for checking well-formedness, instantiability, and consistent semantics of all languages within the family; an implementation as an Eclipse plugin; and an evaluation reporting drastic specification size and analysis time reduction in comparison to an enumerative approach.

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模块化语言产品线：概念、工具和分析

建模语言被广泛应用于模型驱动工程等范例中，以实现开发过程中所有任务的自动化。这些语言可能有变体，在这种情况下，就需要处理语言族而不是单个语言。然而，以枚举的方式分别指定每种语言变体的语法和语义不仅成本高昂，而且会妨碍不同变体之间的重复使用，并可能导致不同变体之间的语义不一致。因此，我们提出了一种新颖的模块化组合方法来描述建模语言的产品线。该方法通过由元模型片段、图转换规则和规则扩展组成的模块，实现了语言族的增量定义。通过选择所需的模块来配置语言变体，这就需要组成语言元模型和一组定义其语义的规则。本文介绍了：检查族内所有语言的良好形成性、可实例化性和一致语义的理论；作为 Eclipse 插件的实现；以及与枚举法相比大幅减少规范大小和分析时间的评估报告。

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来源期刊

Software and Systems Modeling 工程技术-计算机：软件工程

CiteScore

6.00

自引率

20.00%

发文量

104

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： We invite authors to submit papers that discuss and analyze research challenges and experiences pertaining to software and system modeling languages, techniques, tools, practices and other facets. The following are some of the topic areas that are of special interest, but the journal publishes on a wide range of software and systems modeling concerns: Domain-specific models and modeling standards; Model-based testing techniques; Model-based simulation techniques; Formal syntax and semantics of modeling languages such as the UML; Rigorous model-based analysis; Model composition, refinement and transformation; Software Language Engineering; Modeling Languages in Science and Engineering; Language Adaptation and Composition; Metamodeling techniques; Measuring quality of models and languages; Ontological approaches to model engineering; Generating test and code artifacts from models; Model synthesis; Methodology; Model development tool environments; Modeling Cyberphysical Systems; Data intensive modeling; Derivation of explicit models from data; Case studies and experience reports with significant modeling lessons learned; Comparative analyses of modeling languages and techniques; Scientific assessment of modeling practices