Incremental updates for view-based textual modelling

Abstract

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) aims at improving the development of software systems. Within this context textual concrete syntaxes for models are beneficial for many reasons. They foster usability and productivity because of their fast editing style, their usage of error markers, autocompletion and quick fixes. Several frameworks and tools from different communities for creating concrete textual syntaxes for models emerged during recent years. On the other side, view-based modelling enables for different views on a central model which helps modellers to focus on specific aspects. However, combining textual and view-based modelling has not been tackled by research to a satisfying extent. Open issues include the handling and synchronisation of partial and federated textual views with the underlying model. In this paper we present an approach for concrete textual syntaxes that makes use of incremental parsing and transformation techniques. Thus, we circumvent problems that occur when dealing with concrete textual syntaxes in view-based modelling. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.