Graph Transformation for Software Engineers

Abstract

This book is an introduction to graph transformation as a foundation to model-based software engineering at the level of both individual systems and domain-specific modelling languages. The first part of the book presents the fundamentals in a precise, yet largely informal way. Besides serving as prerequisite for describing the applications in the second part, it also provides a comprehensive and systematic survey of the concepts, notations and techniques of graph transformation. The second part presents and discusses a range of applications to both model-based software engineering and domain-specific language engineering. The variety of these applications demonstrates how broadly graphs and graph transformations can be used to model, analyse and implement complex software systems and languages. This is the first textbook that explains the most commonly used concepts, notations, techniques and applications of graph transformation without focusing on one particular mathematical representation or implementation approach. Emphasising the research and engineering methodologies used, it will be a valuable resource for graduate students, practitioners and researchers in software engineering, foundations of programming and formal methods.