Verification Of Graph Transformation Systems Research Articles

An Incremental Optimization Algorithm for Efficient Verification of Graph Transformation Systems

An Incremental Optimization Algorithm for Efficient Verification of Graph Transformation Systems

A NOVEL APPROACH TO VERIFY GRAPH SCHEMA-BASED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS

Graph Grammars have recently become more and more popular as a general formal modeling language. Behavioral modeling of dynamic systems and model to model transformations are a few well-known examples in which graphs have proven their usefulness in software engineering. A special type of graph transformation systems is layered graphs. Layered graphs are a suitable formalism for modeling hierarchical systems. However, most of the research so far concentrated on graph transformation systems as a modeling means, without considering the need for suitable analysis tools. In this paper we concentrate on how to analyze these models. We will describe our approach to show how one can verify the designed graph transformation systems. To verify graph transformation systems we use a novel approach: using Bogor model checker to verify graph transformation systems. The AGG-like graph transformation systems are translated to BIR — the input language of Bogor — and Bogor verifies that model against some properties defined by combining LTL and special purpose graph rules. Supporting schema-based and layered graphs characterize our approach among existing solutions for verification of graph transformation systems.

Automated formal verification of visual modeling languages by model checking

Graph transformation has recently become more and more popular as a general, rule-based visual specification paradigm to formally capture (a) requirements or behavior of user models (on the model-level), and (b) the operational semantics of modeling languages (on the meta-level) as demonstrated by benchmark applications around the Unified Modeling Language (UML). The current paper focuses on the model checking-based automated formal verification of graph transformation systems used either on the model-level or meta-level. We present a general translation that inputs (i) a metamodel of an arbitrary visual modeling language, (ii) a set of graph transformation rules that defines a formal operational semantics for the language, and (iii) an arbitrary well-formed model instance of the language and generates a transitions system (TS) that serve as the underlying mathematical specification formalism of various model checker tools. The main theoretical benefit of our approach is an optimization technique that projects only the dynamic parts of the graph transformation system into the target transition system, which results in a drastical reduction in the state space. The main practical benefit is the use of existing back-end model checker tools, which directly provides formal verification facilities (without additional efforts required to implement an analysis tool) for many practical applications captured in a very high-level visual notation. The practical feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by modeling and analyzing the well-known verification benchmark of dining philosophers both on the model and meta-level.