A general attribution concept for models in script M - Adhesive transformation systems

Abstract

Attributes are an important concept for modeling data in practical applications. Up to now there is no adequate way to define attributes for different kinds of models used in -adhesive transformation systems, which are a special kind of graph transformation system based on -adhesive categories. Especially a proper representation and definition of attributes and their values as well as a suitable handling of the data does not fit well with other graph transformation formalisms. In this paper, we propose a new method to define attributes in a natural, but still formally precise and widely applicable way. We define a new kind of adhesive category, called -adhesive, that can be used for transformations of attributes, while the underlying models are still -adhesive ones. As a result, attributed models can be used as they are intended to be, but with a formal background and proven well-behavior. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.