Using weaving models in metamodel and model co-evolution approach

Abstract

In Model-Driven Engineering, analogously to any software artifact, metamodels are equally prone to evolution. When a metamodel undergoes modifications, all the related artifacts must be accordingly adapted in order to remain valid. Manual co-evolution of models after these metamodel changes is error-prone. In this setting, this paper introduces a semi-automatic process for the co-evolution of models after metamodel evolution. The process is divided in four main stages: at the differencing stage, the changes to the metamodel are detected. After that these changes are linked with the original model elements and represented in a weaving model which serves to generate a transformation used in the last stage in order to obtain the evolved model. Contributions of this paper include the automatic co-evolution of breaking and resolvable changes and the assistance to the model developer in the co-evolution of breaking and un-resolvable changes.