A Unifying Semantic Framework for Multilevel Metamodeling
Dániel Varró, András Pataricza · 2001
As the revision process of UML attempts to re-architecture the single and imprecise language into a family of languages with well--defined semantics, the nature of the core metamodeling framework is of growing importance. In the current paper, a formal mathematical background is presented for a uniform representation of multilevel metamodels and static well--formedness constraints supported by a verification method for checking the correctness of model refinement steps. We demonstrate that the mathematical framework is rich enough to formally capture many state--of--the--art metamodeling techniques including deep instantiation, structural extension, type restriction, package inheritance and multilevel metamodeling, which makes it feasible for providing a common mathematical basis for comparing and developing metamodeling approaches of engineering interest. 1