Transformation Rules for Translating Business Rules to OCL Constraints

Abstract

AbstractIn design of component based applications, the designers have to produce visual such as Unified Modeling Language (UML) models, and describe the software component interfaces. Business rules and constraints are the key components in the skeletons of software components. Semantic of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) language is typically used to express constraints in natural language and then a software engineer manually maps SBVR business rules to other formal languages such as UML, Object Constraint Language (OCL) expressions. However, OCL is the only medium used to write constraints for UML models but manual translation of SBVR rules to OCL constraints is difficult, complex and time consuming. Moreover, the lack of tool support for automated creation of OCL constraints from SBVR makes this scenario more complex. As, both SBVR and OCL are based on First-Order Logic (FOL), model transformation technology can be used to automate the transformation of SBVR to OCL. In this research paper, we present a transformation rules based approach to automate the process of SBVR to OCL transformation. The presented approach implemented in SBVR2OCL prototype tool as a proof of concept. The presented method softens the process of creating OCL constraints and also assists the designers by simplifying software designing process.KeywordsModel TransformationTransformation RulesOCL constraintsSBVR business rulesSBVR business design