Finite model reasoning on UML class diagrams via constraint programming

Abstract

Finite model reasoning in UML diagrams is an important task for assessing the quality of the analysis phase in the development of software applications in which it is assumed that the number of objects of the domain is finite. In this paper, we show how to encode finite model reasoning in UML diagrams as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP), exploiting techniques developed in description logics. In doing so we set up and solve an intermediate CSP problem to deal with the explosion of class combinations arising in the encoding. To solve the resulting CSP problems we rely on the use of off-the-shelf tools for constraint modeling and programming. As a result, we obtain, to the best of our knowledge, the first implemented system that performs finite model reasoning on UML diagrams.