Co-evolution of metamodels and models through consistent change propagation

In Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), metamodels and domain-specific languages are key artifacts as they are used to define syntax and semantics of domain models. However, metamodels are evolving over time, requiring existing domain models to be co-evolved. Though approaches have been proposed for performing such co-evolution automatically, those approaches typically support only specific metamodel changes. In this paper, we present a vision of co-evolution between metamodels and models through consistent change propagation. The approach addressed co-evolution issues without being limited to specific metamodels or evolution scenarios. It relies on incremental management of metamodel-based constraints that are used to detect co-evolution failures (i.e., inconsistencies between metamodel and model). After failure detection, the approach automatically generates suggestions for correction (i.e., repairs for inconsistencies). Preliminary validation results are promising as they indicate th...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: JSS
• Authors: Andreas Demuth, Markus Riedl-Ehrenleitner, Roberto E. Lopez-Herrejon, Alexander Egyed
• Keywords: JSS 2016