Visualization of model transformations in QVTo
van Maarten Dongen · 2012
Model-driven software engineering (MDSE) is an engineering paradigm that is being more and more used as an alternative for traditional software engineering paradigms. In MDSE models play a central role in the development process, and model-to-model transformations (model transformations) are considered to be the heart and soul of MDSE. In the past years many model transformation languages have been introduced: ATL (ATLAS Transformation Language), Query/View/Transformation (QVT), Xtend , Kermeta (Kent Model Transformation Language), MOLA and YATL (Yet Another Transformation Language). Traditional software engineering paradigms are supported by different traceability and debugging techniques and methods. However, since MDSE is a new paradigm, similar traceability and debugging techniques and methods are still rather limited in MDSE. Recent research on traceability and visualization of ATL transformations shows the benefits for debugging, coverage analysis and change analysis. For other transformation languages work is still to be done, as other languages require different traceability techniques and allow new visualization methods. This thesis is about visualization of model transformations in QVT-Operational (QVTo), which is one of the most widely-used and actively developed transformation languages nowadays. We propose a method for the visualization of QVTo model transformations. In order to obtain this visualization, we introduce a hierarchical representation for QVTo transformations. Using this hierarchical representation in combination with the static and dynamic traceability information of a QVTo transformation, we visualize the relations between elements of the source and target models of a QVTo transformation.