A language-independent and formal approach to pattern-based modelling with support for composition and analysis

Abstract

Abstract:Context: Patterns are used in different disciplines as a way to record expert knowledge for problem solv-ing in specific areas. Their systematic use in Software Engineering promotes quality, standardization, reusability and maintainability of software artefacts. The full realisation of their power is however hindered by the lack of a standard formalization of the notion of pattern. Objective: Our goal is to provide a language-independent formalization of the notion of pattern, so that it allows its application to different modelling languages and tools, as well as generic methods to enable pattern discovery, instantiation, composition, and conflict analysis. Method: For this purpose, we present a new visual and formal, language-independent approach to the specification of patterns. The approach is formulated in a general way, based on graphs and category theory, and allows the specification of patterns in terms of (nested) variable submodels, constraints on their allowed variance, and inter-pattern synchronization across several diagrams (e.g. class and sequence dia-grams for UML design patterns). Results: We provide a formal notion of pattern satisfaction by models and propose mechanisms to sug-gest model transformations so that models become consistent with the patterns. We define methods for pattern composition, and conflict analysis. We illustrate our proposal on UML design patterns, and discuss its generality and applicability on different types of patterns, e.g. workflow patterns, enterprise inte-gration patterns and interaction patterns. Conclusion: The approach has proven to be powerful enough to formalize patterns from different domains, providing methods to analyse conflicts and dependencies that usually are expressed only in tex-tual form. Its language independence makes it suitable for integration in meta-modelling tools and for use in Model-Driven Engineering.

User interface patterns in recommendation-empowered content intensive multimedia applications

“…Some authors (Bottoni et al [15]) claim that the full realisation of the power of design patterns, at least in the field of software engineering, is hindered by the lack of a standard, generic formalization of the notion of pattern. Therefore they propose a formal, visual approach to the specification of software design patterns to facilitate pattern instantiation, identification, and composition, as well as analysis of pattern conflicts.…”

Flexible Model-to-Model Transformation Templates: An Application to ATL.

“…Intuitively, a concept containing elements with cardinality annotations is equivalent to a (possibly infinite) set of "flat" concepts where the cardinality of all elements is 1. Similar to [BGdL10], the set of flat concepts is calculated by performing all possible expansions in the cardinality interval of every element in the concept. If the cardinality interval includes 0, then one of the possible expansions implies deleting such element.…”

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“…Similar to [4], the set of flat concepts is calculated by performing all possible expansions in the cardinality interval of every element in the concept. If the cardinality interval includes 0, then one of the possible expansions implies deleting such element.…”