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A Language-Theoretic View on Guidelines and Consistency Rules of UML

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Model Driven Architecture - Foundations and Applications (ECMDA-FA 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 5562))

Abstract

Guidelines and consistency rules of UML are used to control the degrees of freedom provided by the language to prevent faults. Guidelines are used in specific domains (e.g., avionics) to recommend the proper use of technologies. Consistency rules are used to deal with inconsistencies in models. However, guidelines and consistency rules use informal restrictions on the uses of languages, which makes checking difficult. In this paper, we consider these problems from a language-theoretic view. We propose the formalism of C-Systems, short for “formal language control systems”. A C-System consists of a controlled grammar and a controlling grammar. Guidelines and consistency rules are formalized as controlling grammars that control the uses of UML, i.e. the derivations using the grammar of UML. This approach can be implemented as a parser, which can automatically verify the rules on a UML user model in XMI format. A comparison to related work shows our contribution: a generic top-down and syntax-based approach that checks language level constraints at compile-time.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory LATTIS, INSA, University of Toulouse, 135 Avenue de Rangueil, 31077, Toulouse, France

    Zhe Chen & Gilles Motet

  2. Foundation for an Industrial Safety Culture, 6 Allée Emile Monso, 31029, Toulouse, France

    Gilles Motet

Authors
  1. Zhe Chen
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  2. Gilles Motet
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of York, YO10 5DD, Heslington, York, United Kingdom

    Richard F. Paige

  2. IBM India Research Laboratory, Bangalore, India

    Alan Hartman

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Arend Rensink

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Chen, Z., Motet, G. (2009). A Language-Theoretic View on Guidelines and Consistency Rules of UML. In: Paige, R.F., Hartman, A., Rensink, A. (eds) Model Driven Architecture - Foundations and Applications. ECMDA-FA 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5562. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02674-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02674-4_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-02673-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-02674-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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