A FRAMEWORK FOR EXECUTING CROSS-MODEL TRANSFORMATIONS BASED ON PLUGGABLE METAMODELS
Geert Delanote, Sven De Labey, Koen Vanderkimpen, Eric Steegmans · 2007
The design of complex software systems requires developers to use a variety of modeling languages in order to model various system aspects. The heterogeneity of these modeling languages gives rise to new challenges. Design decisions must be communicated across heterogeneous models, thus creating a need for cross-model communication. Furthermore, models must be transformable between different modeling languages, thus creating a need for cross-model transformations. By supporting only a single modeling language and by providing limited interoperability, however, the majority of today’s modeling tools cannot provide cross-model communication nor transformation, as such jeopardizing the consistency of the design as a whole. In this paper, we present the design of a transformation framework, Pluto, which supports cross-model transformations based on pluggable metamodels. We discuss how Pluto eases the realization of concrete metamodels by offering abstract modeling constructs, and we show how it is able to execute transformations between concrete instances of such metamodels.