Model-Based Code-Generators and Compilers - Track Introduction

Abstract

In the last years, model-based software development received more and more attraction [8,22]. Often, models are expressed in a formal language - often a domain specific language short: DSL [7,17,24] -, and implementations are derived by model-based code generators [12]. There are toolboxes for defining domainspecific languages and generating compilers for them such as the Eclipse Modeling Framework short: EMF [10,23]. DSLs are defined by a Meta-Model [14] and their compilation is by model-transformations [4,13,16,21]. From these specifications, code generators can be generated. In addition, the toolboxes often generate editors, debuggers and embeddings in programming environments such as Eclipse [5]. Meta models are frequently denoted by a graphical notation analogous to UML class diagrams or by context-free grammars. Consistency constraints are then specified by OCL [20] or similar languages. Often, the generated code is manually improved. Therefore, some research focuses on the consistency between models and their implementations.