Using model types to support contract-aware model substitutability

Abstract

Model typing extends the applicability of typing to model-oriented type system by assigning models with specific types. It provides support for model substitutability addressing a wide range of facilities such as model transformation reuse. While existing approaches are limited to object-oriented metamodels (e.g., MOF) as types, there is a need for exploring more precise types. In particular, we propose in this paper an extension to model typing that takes into account contract-aware substitutability where contracts are defined in terms of invariants and pre-/postconditions expressed using OCL. While invariants offer a suitable way to complete object-oriented metamodels with additional structural properties, pre-/postconditions pave the way of behavioral substitutability for model transformation specialization. We also provide an implementation to rigorously reason about the substitutability on model types with contracts and apply it on use cases coming from the optimizing compiler community. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.