Authors:
Henning Berg
and
Birger Møller-Pedersen
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Norway
Keyword(s):
Model Composition, Languages, Domain-specific Modelling, Runtime.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications and Software Development
;
Domain-Specific Modeling and Domain-Specific Languages
;
Frameworks for Model-Driven Development
;
Languages, Tools and Architectures
;
MetaModeling
;
Methodologies, Processes and Platforms
;
Model Execution and Simulation
;
Model-Driven Software Development
;
Models
;
Paradigm Trends
;
Software Engineering
Abstract:
An essential operation in model-driven engineering is composition of models and their metamodels. There exist several mechanisms for model composition. However, most of these only consider composition of either models or metamodels and not both kinds of models simultaneously, and do not address how the composition impacts modelling artefacts like editors, transformations and semantics. Moreover, model composition mechanisms typically deal with model structure and do not consider operational semantics. In this paper, we discuss a novel approach for the composition of both models and metamodels in a virtually non-intrusive manner. We achieve this by utilising a placeholder mechanism where classes in one metamodel may represent classes of another. The ideas presented have been validated by the construction of a framework. We will illustrate how non-intrusive composition allows linking the operational semantics of different languages without rendering existing modelling artefacts inconsi
stent. This increases the flexibility in how languages can be combined, and reduces the amount of necessary changes of tools and other modelling utilities.
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