Formal Model Merging Applied to Class Diagram Integration

Abstract

The integration of software artifacts is present in many scenarios of the Software Engineering field: objectoriented modeling, relational databases, XML schemas, ontologies, aspect-oriented programming, etc. In Model Management, software artifacts are viewed as models that can be manipulated by means of generic operators, which are specified independently of the context in which they are used. One of these operators is Merge, which enables the automated integration of models. Solutions for merging models that are achieved by applying this operator are more abstract and reusable than the ad-hoc solutions that are pervasive in many contexts of the Software Engineering field. In this paper, we present our automated approach for generic model merging from a practical standpoint, providing support for conflict resolution and traceability between software artifacts by using the QVT Relations language. We focus on the definition of our operator Merge, applying it to Class Diagrams integration.

On Differencing Object-Oriented Formal Specifications.

“…These documents could be in the form of design models, software specifications, source code, etc. During a particular collaborative activity, a resulting local version of a document needs to be merged [2,6] with the version of the document available in a shared repository. The latter shared document encloses all the modifications made locally by the developers involved and checked into the repository at that point in time.…”

“…similarity scoring < 1) then there is a possibility that their contents (other than names) have been modified, new links have been attached to them or that some of their links have been removed. The algorithm addresses this by detecting the changed properties other than names and adding them to delta (line [13][14][15][16][17][18] 2 of type "derived_from", "aggregated_by" or "associated_with" connects it to a new class B and a link k 1 of the same type with an old class A is removed. A function updateMoving is used to perform the above verification; it accepts a delta containing a list of operations and a specification element E as parameters and returns an object containing the two elements representing the old and new link ends or a "null" object if no moving has taken place.…”

Matching and Merging of Variant Feature Specifications

“…In database design, merge is an important step for producing a schema capturing the data requirements of all the stakeholders [2]. Software engineering deals extensively with model mergingseveral papers study the subject in specific domains, including early requirements [15], static UML diagrams [61], [14], [62], [63], [64], and declarative specifications [65]. None of these were specifically designed for behavioural models and are either inapplicable or unsuitable for matching Statechart models.…”

A Conflicts Detection Approach for Merging Formal Specification Views

“…These documents (views) could be in the form of design models, software specifications, source code, etc. During a particular collaborative activity, a resulting local view needs to be merged [2] with the version of the document available in a shared repository. The latter shared document encloses all the modifications made locally and checked (integrated) into the repository at that point in time.…”