A Formal Definition of Model Composition Traceability

TL;DR

This paper formalizes traceability in model composition within multi-modeling approaches, aiming to improve understanding and management of the complex, error-prone process through a rigorous, formal framework.

Contribution

It introduces a formal definition of model composition traceability and provides a generic approach based on this formalization, advancing previous empirical work.

Findings

Formal definition of model composition traceability

A generic traceability approach based on the formalization

Enhanced understanding of composition effects

Abstract

In a multi-modeling based approach, the system under development is described by several models that represent various perspectives and concerns. Obviously, these partial representations are less complex than the global model, but they need to be composed to address validation and synchronization tasks. The model composition is a crucial model driven development operation, but it remains a tedious and error prone activity. In this perspective, a traceability mechanism offers a way to master this complexity by providing support to comprehend the composition effects. In previous work, we presented a traceability approach dedicated to this operation. The current takes advantages of these experiments, and proposes a formalization of the model composition traceability. Also, an overview of a generic traceability approach is provided. The latter relies on the formal definition we introduce for the model composition operation and the related traces.