Composable Code Generation for Model-Based Development

Abstract

Many engineering and application domains, including distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems, are increasingly employing a graphical model-based development approach. However, the full potential of this approach has not yet been realized due to the complexity of automatically generating non-standard types of code. In this paper, we present a new framework for generating code that is referred to as composable code generation. Under this framework, code generators are not written as monolithic programs that are separate from their corresponding graphical models as has been the practice in the past. Instead, code generators are composed of modular entity-specific generation routines that are attached directly to modeling entities, their meta-data, or to collections of modeling entities. Code is built up by traversing the model, querying each entity that is encountered for a specific type of code generation routine and then executing each accessed routine. We describe this framework in detail and provide experimental results from a DRE application domain.

This material is based upon work supported by the United States Air Force under Contract No. F33615-00-C-1705. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Air Force.