Simplifying Model Transformation Chains by Rule Composition

Abstract

Many model transformation problems require different intermediate transformation steps, e.g., when platform-specific models (PSM) are generated from platform-independent models (PIM). This requires the presence of several intermediate meta-models between those of the PIM and the PSM. Thus, for achieving the final PSM, a chain of transformation is needed. The solution proposed in this paper is to investigate whether it is possible to generate a single transformation from a chain of transformations, solely involving the initial PIM and final PSM meta-models. The presented work focuses on the composition of algebraic graph transformations at the rule level. Moreover, we discuss about the translation of transformations implemented in dedicated model-to-model transformation languages to algebraic graph transformation specifications. We apply the automatic procedure for composing rules in the context of the evolution of Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), transforming UML models into EJB 2.0 and then to EJB 3.0 models. The composable transformations are specified in the Atlas Transformation Language.