Automated transformation of NL to OCL constraints via SBVR

Abstract

This paper presents a neoteric method to automatically generate object constraint language (OCL) constraints from natural language (NL) statements. To support the software practitioners in using OCL, we present a novel method. The aim of this method is to produce a framework so that the user of unified modelling language (UML) tool can write constraints and pre/post conditions in natural language like English and the framework converts such natural language expressions to equivalent OCL statements. Here, the state of art of the two well-known technologies, namely open natural language processing (OpenNLP) and Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) are used. OpenNLP is used as a pre-processing phase to process the natural language statements. Pre-processing includes sentence splitting, tokenisation and parts of speech (POS) tagging. Then in the second phase, i.e., the transformation phase SBVR is used to automatically transform the preprocessed natural language statements to SBVR specifications. The main aim of this research is to provide automated tool support for model processing tasks in UML models via SBVR to model transform the input SBVR specifications to OCL specifications as explained in model driven architecture (MDA).