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Model transformation product lines

Abstract:

Model transformations enable automation in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and are key to its success. The emphasis of MDE on using domain-specific languages has caused a proliferation of meta-models, many of them capturing variants of base languages. In this scenario, developing a transformation for a new meta-model is usually performed manually with no reuse, even if comparable transformations for similar meta-models exist. This is a suboptimal process that precludes a wider adoption of MDE in industry. To improve this situation, we propose applying ideas from software product lines to transformation engineering. Our proposal enables the definition of meta-model product lines to capture the variability within a domain, on top of which transformations can be defined in a modular way. We call this construction transformation product line (TPL), and propose mechanisms for their construction, extension and analysis. TPLs are supported by a tool, Merlin, which is agnostic to the transformation language and lifts analyses based on model finding to the TPL. Finally, we report on an evaluation showing the benefits of building and analysing TPLs compared to building and analysing each individual transformation.