Skip to main content

Model Transformation By-Example: A Survey of the First Wave

  • Chapter
Conceptual Modelling and Its Theoretical Foundations

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7260))

Abstract

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) places models as first-class artifacts throughout the software lifecycle. In this context, model transformations are crucial for the success of MDE, being comparable in role and importance to compilers for high-level programming languages. Thus, several model transformation approaches have been developed in the last decade, whereby originally most of them are based on the abstract syntax of modeling languages. However, this implementation specific focus makes it difficult for modelers to develop model transformations, because they are familiar with the concrete syntax but not with its computer internal representation.

To tackle this problem, model transformation by-example approaches have been proposed which follow the same fundamental idea as query by-example and programming by-example approaches. Instead of using the computer internal representation of models, examples represented in concrete syntax are used to define transformations. Because different transformation scenarios occur in MDE, different by-example approaches have been developed. This chapter gives an overview on the emerging concepts, techniques, and approaches in this young by-example area.

This work has been partly funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) and FFG under grant FIT-IT-819584.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Amelunxen, C., Königs, A., Rötschke, T., Schürr, A.: MOFLON: A Standard-Compliant Metamodeling Framework with Graph Transformations. In: Rensink, A., Warmer, J. (eds.) ECMDA-FA 2006. LNCS, vol. 4066, pp. 361–375. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Atkinson, C., Kühne, T.: Model-Driven Development: A Metamodeling Foundation. IEEE Software 20(5), 36–41 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Baar, T., Whittle, J.: On the Usage of Concrete Syntax in Model Transformation Rules. In: Virbitskaite, I., Voronkov, A. (eds.) PSI 2006. LNCS, vol. 4378, pp. 84–97. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Balogh, Z., Varró, D.: Model transformation by example using inductive logic programming. Software and System Modeling 8(3), 347–364 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Beck, K.: Test Driven Development: By Example. Addison-Wesley (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bernstein, P.A., Melnik, S.: Model management 2.0: manipulating richer mappings. In: Int. Conf. on Management of Data (SIGMOD 2007), pp. 1–12. ACM (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Bézivin, J.: On the unification power of models. Software and System Modeling 4(2), 171–188 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Brosch, P., Langer, P., Seidl, M., Wieland, K., Wimmer, M., Kappel, G., Retschitzegger, W., Schwinger, W.: An Example Is Worth a Thousand Words: Composite Operation Modeling By-Example. In: Schürr, A., Selic, B. (eds.) MODELS 2009. LNCS, vol. 5795, pp. 271–285. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Brosch, P., Langer, P., Seidl, M., Wimmer, M.: Towards End-User Adaptable Model Versioning: The By-Example Operation Recorder. In: Proc. of CVSM 2009 @ ICSE 2009. IEEE (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Cabot, J.: From Declarative to Imperative UML/OCL Operation Specifications. In: Parent, C., Schewe, K.-D., Storey, V.C., Thalheim, B. (eds.) ER 2007. LNCS, vol. 4801, pp. 198–213. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Chen, P.P.S.: The Entity-Relationship Model—Toward a Unified View of Data. ACM Transactions on Database Systems 1, 9–36 (1976)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Cuadrado, J.S., Molina, J.G., Tortosa, M.M.: RubyTL: A Practical, Extensible Transformation Language. In: Rensink, A., Warmer, J. (eds.) ECMDA-FA 2006. LNCS, vol. 4066, pp. 158–172. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Czarnecki, K., Helsen, S.: Feature-based survey of model transformation approaches. IBM Systems Journal 45(3), 621–646 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Dolques, X., Huchard, M., Nebut, C.: From transformation traces to transformation rules: Assisting Model Driven Engineering approach with Formal Concept Analysis. In: 17th Int. Conf. on Conceptual Structures (ICCS 2009), vol. 483, pp. 15–29. CEUR-WS (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Fowler, M.: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. Addison-Wesley, Boston (1999)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. France, R., Rumpe, B.: Model-driven Development of Complex Software: A Research Roadmap. In: 29th Int. Conf. on Software Engineering (ICSE 2007) - Future of Software Engineering, pp. 37–54 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  17. García-Magariño, I., Gómez-Sanz, J.J., Fuentes-Fernández, R.: Model Transformation By-Example: An Algorithm for Generating Many-to-Many Transformation Rules in Several Model Transformation Languages. In: Paige, R.F. (ed.) ICMT 2009. LNCS, vol. 5563, pp. 52–66. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. ISO/IEC: 14977:1996(E) Information technology – Syntactic metalanguage – Extended BNF, International standard (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Jouault, F., Allilaire, F., Bézivin, J., Kurtev, I.: ATL: A model transformation tool. Sci. Comput. Program 72(1-2), 31–39 (2008)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  20. Kappel, G., Kapsammer, E., Kargl, H., Kramler, G., Reiter, T., Retschitzegger, W., Schwinger, W., Wimmer, M.: Lifting Metamodels to Ontologies: A Step to the Semantic Integration of Modeling Languages. In: Wang, J., Whittle, J., Harel, D., Reggio, G. (eds.) MoDELS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4199, pp. 528–542. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Kappel, G., Kargl, H., Kramler, G., Schauerhuber, A., Seidl, M., Strommer, M., Wimmer, M.: Matching Metamodels with Semantic Systems - An Experience Report. In: Workshop Proceedings of Datenbanksysteme in Business, Technologie und Web, BTW 2007 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Kargl, H., Wimmer, M., Seidl, M., Kappel, G.: SmartMatcher: Improving Automatically Generated Transformations. Datenbank-Spektrum 29, 42–52 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Kessentini, M., Sahraoui, H.A., Boukadoum, M.: Model Transformation as an Optimization Problem. In: Czarnecki, K., Ober, I., Bruel, J.-M., Uhl, A., Völter, M. (eds.) MODELS 2008. LNCS, vol. 5301, pp. 159–173. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. Kleppe, A.: Software Language Engineering: Creating Domain-Specific Languages Using Metamodels. Addison-Wesley (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Kolovos, D.S., Paige, R.F., Polack, F.A.C.: The Epsilon Transformation Language. In: Vallecillo, A., Gray, J., Pierantonio, A. (eds.) ICMT 2008. LNCS, vol. 5063, pp. 46–60. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Kühne, T.: Matters of (Meta-)Modeling. Software and System Modeling 5(4), 369–385 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Langer, P., Wimmer, M., Kappel, G.: Model-to-Model Transformations By Demonstration. In: Tratt, L., Gogolla, M. (eds.) ICMT 2010. LNCS, vol. 6142, pp. 153–167. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. de Lara, J., Vangheluwe, H.: AToM3: A Tool for Multi-formalism and Meta-modelling. In: Kutsche, R.-D., Weber, H. (eds.) FASE 2002. LNCS, vol. 2306, pp. 174–188. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Lieberman, H.: Your wish is my command: programming by example. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc. (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Ma, H., Shao, W.-Z., Zhang, L., Ma, Z.-Y., Jiang, Y.-B.: Applying OO Metrics to Assess UML Meta-models. In: Baar, T., Strohmeier, A., Moreira, A., Mellor, S.J. (eds.) UML 2004. LNCS, vol. 3273, pp. 12–26. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Mens, T., Gorp, P.V.: A Taxonomy of Model Transformation. Electr. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 152, 125–142 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Nickel, U., Niere, J., Zündorf, A.: The FUJABA environment. In: Int. Conf. on Software Engineering (ICSE 2000), pp. 742–745 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Object Management Group (OMG): Meta Object Facility, Version 2.0 (2006), http://www.omg.org/spec/MOF/2.0/PDF/

  34. Object Management Group (OMG): Unified Modeling Language Superstructure Specification, Version 2.1.2 (2007), http://www.omg.org/spec/UML/2.1.2/Superstructure/PDF

  35. OMG, O.: Meta Object Facility (MOF) 2.0 Query/View/Transformation Specification. Final Adopted Specification (November 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  36. OMG, O.: OCL Specification Version 2.0 (June 2005), http://www.omg.org/docs/ptc/05-06-06.pdf

  37. Rahm, E., Bernstein, P.A.: A survey of approaches to automatic schema matching. VLDB Journal 10(4), 334–350 (2001)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  38. Schmidt, D.C.: Model-Driven Engineering. IEEE Computer 39(2), 25–31 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Sendall, S., Kozaczynski, W.: Model Transformation: The Heart and Soul of Model-Driven Software Development. IEEE Software 20, 42–45 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Shvaiko, P., Euzenat, J.: A Survey of Schema-Based Matching Approaches. In: Spaccapietra, S. (ed.) Journal on Data Semantics IV. LNCS, vol. 3730, pp. 146–171. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  41. Strommer, M., Wimmer, M.: A Framework for Model Transformation By-Example: Concepts and Tool Support. In: 46th Int. Conf. on Objects, Components, Models and Patterns (TOOLS 2008). LNBIP, vol. 11, pp. 372–391. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Sun, Y., Gray, J., White, J.: MT-Scribe: an end-user approach to automate software model evolution. In: 33rd Int. Conf. on Software Engineering (ICSE 2011), pp. 980–982. ACM (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Sun, Y., White, J., Gray, J.: Model Transformation by Demonstration. In: Schürr, A., Selic, B. (eds.) MODELS 2009. LNCS, vol. 5795, pp. 712–726. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  44. Taentzer, G.: AGG: A Graph Transformation Environment for Modeling and Validation of Software. In: Pfaltz, J.L., Nagl, M., Böhlen, B. (eds.) AGTIVE 2003. LNCS, vol. 3062, pp. 446–453. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  45. Varró, D.: Model Transformation by Example. In: Wang, J., Whittle, J., Harel, D., Reggio, G. (eds.) MoDELS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4199, pp. 410–424. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  46. Whittle, J., Moreira, A., Araújo, J., Jayaraman, P.K., Elkhodary, A.M., Rabbi, R.: An Expressive Aspect Composition Language for UML State Diagrams. In: Engels, G., Opdyke, B., Schmidt, D.C., Weil, F. (eds.) MODELS 2007. LNCS, vol. 4735, pp. 514–528. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  47. Wimmer, M., Strommer, M., Kargl, H., Kramler, G.: Towards Model Transformation Generation By-Example. In: 40th Hawaiian Int. Conf. on Systems Science (HICSS 2007). IEEE Computer Society (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Zloof, M.M.: Query-by-Example: the Invocation and Definition of Tables and Forms. In: Int. Conf. on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB 1975), pp. 1–24. ACM (1975)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Antje Düsterhöft Meike Klettke Klaus-Dieter Schewe

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kappel, G., Langer, P., Retschitzegger, W., Schwinger, W., Wimmer, M. (2012). Model Transformation By-Example: A Survey of the First Wave. In: Düsterhöft, A., Klettke, M., Schewe, KD. (eds) Conceptual Modelling and Its Theoretical Foundations. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7260. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28279-9_15

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28279-9_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-28278-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-28279-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics