On the automation-supported derivation of domain-specific UML profiles considering static semantics

Abstract

AbstractIn the light of standardization, the model-driven engineering (MDE) is becoming increasingly important for the development of DSLs, in addition to traditional approaches based on grammar formalisms. Metamodels define the abstract syntax and static semantics of a DSL and can be created by using the language concepts of the Meta Object Facility (MOF) or by defining a UML profile.Both metamodels and UML profiles are often provided for standardized DSLs, and the mappings of metamodels to UML profiles are usually specified informally in natural language, which also applies for the static semantics of metamodels and/or UML profiles, which has the disadvantage that ambiguities can occur, and that the static semantics must be manually translated into a machine-processable language.To address these weaknesses, we propose a new automated approach for deriving a UML profile from the metamodel of a DSL. One novelty is that subsetting or redefining metaclass attributes are mapped to stereotype attributes whose values are computed at runtime via automatically created OCL expressions. The automatic transfer of the static semantics of a DSL to a UML profile is a further contribution of our approach. Our DSL Metamodeling and Derivation Toolchain (DSL-MeDeTo) implements all aspects of our proposed approach in Eclipse. This enabled us to successfully apply our approach to the two DSLs Test Description Language (TDL) and Specification and Description Language (SDL).