Engineering Delta Modeling Languages

TL;DR

This paper introduces a process to automatically derive delta modeling languages from existing base language grammars, enabling flexible and domain-specific variability management.

Contribution

It presents a novel method for automatically generating delta languages from base language grammars, reducing manual effort and heterogeneity.

Findings

Automated delta language derivation from base grammars.

Application to textual statecharts demonstrating practicality.

Enhanced flexibility in variability modeling.

Abstract

Delta modeling is a modular, yet flexible approach to capture spatial and temporal variability by explicitly representing the differences between system variants or versions. The conceptual idea of delta modeling is language-independent. But, in order to apply delta modeling for a concrete language, so far, a delta language had to be manually developed on top of the base language leading to a large variety of heterogeneous language concepts. In this paper, we present a process that allows deriving a delta language from the grammar of a given base language. Our approach relies on an automatically generated language extension that can be manually adapted to meet domain-specific needs. We illustrate our approach using delta modeling on a textual variant of statecharts.