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Generating instance models from meta models

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Abstract

Meta modeling is a wide-spread technique to define visual languages, with the UML being the most prominent one. Despite several advantages of meta modeling such as ease of use, the meta modeling approach has one disadvantage: it is not constructive, i.e., it does not offer a direct means of generating instances of the language. This disadvantage poses a severe limitation for certain applications. For example, when developing model transformations, it is desirable to have enough valid instance models available for large-scale testing. Producing such a large set by hand is tedious. In the related problem of compiler testing, a string grammar together with a simple generation algorithm is typically used to produce words of the language automatically. In this paper, we introduce instance-generating graph grammars for creating instances of meta models, thereby overcoming the main deficit of the meta modeling approach for defining languages.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Karsten Ehrig

  2. IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, 8803, Rüschlikon, Switzerland

    Jochen Malte Küster

  3. Department of Computer Science, Philipps-University, Marburg, Germany

    Gabriele Taentzer

Authors
  1. Karsten Ehrig
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  2. Jochen Malte Küster
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  3. Gabriele Taentzer
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Correspondence to Karsten Ehrig.

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Communicated by Prof. Thomas Kühne.

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Ehrig, K., Küster, J.M. & Taentzer, G. Generating instance models from meta models. Softw Syst Model 8, 479–500 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-008-0095-y

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