Reusable graph transformation templates

Abstract

Model-Driven Engineering promotes models as the principal artefacts of the development, hence model transformation techniques - like graph transformation - become key enablers for this development paradigm. In order to increase the adoption of Model-Driven Engineering in industrial practice, techniques aimed at raising the quality and productivity in model transformation development are needed. In this paper we bring elements from generic programming into graph transformation in order to define generic graph transformations that can be reused in different contexts. In particular, we propose the definition and instantiation of graph transformation templates whose requirements from generic types are specified through so-called concepts, as well as mixin layers that extend meta-models with the extra auxiliary elements needed by templates. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.