The Dagstuhl Middle Metamodel: A Schema For Reverse Engineering

Abstract

The Dagstuhl Middle Metamodel (DMM) is an extensible schema for static models of software. It is a middle-level metamodel since it captures program level entities and their relationships, rather than a full abstract syntax graph (lower level), or architectural abstractions (higher level). DMM can be used to represent models extracted from software written in most common object-oriented and procedural languages. This paper presents the main features of DMM.

ProMeTA: a taxonomy for program metamodels in program reverse engineering

“…Moreover, we replace work summary papers such as a summary of a Ph.D. work with their complete version papers. We perform the full analysis and remove 6 more papers from the list, leaving 44 papers (Ebert 2008;Bergmayr and Wimmer 2013;Naik and Bahulkar 2004;Chirila and Jebelean 2010;Molina 2010, 2014;Martinez et al 2014: Owens andAnderson 2013;Soden and Eichler 2007;Antoniol et al 2003;Vidács 2009;Strein et al 2006;Lethbridge et al 2004;Lin and Holt 2004;Knodel and Calderon-Meza 2004;Brühlmann et al 2008;Tripathi et al 2009;Lanza 2003;Pinzger et al 2005;Mens and Lanza 2002;Tichelaar et al 2000;Antoniol et al 2005;Gȯmez et al 2009;Reus et al 2006;Reus et al 2004;Cho 2005;Heidenreich et al 2010;Kollmann and Gogolla 2001;Favre 2008;Pėrez-Castillo et al 2013;Santibȧnėz et al 2015;Durelli et al 2014;Izquierdo and Molina 2010;Martinez et al 2014;Arcelli et al 2010;Guėhėneuc and Albin-Amiot 2001;Harmer and Wilkie 2002;Wu 2010;Gȯmez and Ducasse 2012;Alikacem and Sahraoui 2009;Ossher et al 2009;…”

“…Then, existing classifications, comparisons of program metamodels and related concepts (Lethbridge et al 2004;Jin and Cordy 2006;Izquierdo and Molina 2014;Bellay and Gall 1997;Armstrong and Trudeau 1998;Lethbridge 1998;Sim et al 2000;Ferenc et al 2001Ferenc et al , 2002Arcelli et al 2005;Amelunxen et al 2006) are analyzed. This information is merged into one structure in the form of feature diagrams (Kang et al 1990) by referring to the basic term classification defined in our conceptual framework.…”

“…During the construction process of ProMeTA, the important characteristics from existing classification schemes/frameworks and comparisons (Lethbridge et al 2004;Jin and Cordy 2006;Izquierdo and Molina 2014;Bellay and Gall 1997;Armstrong and Trudeau 1998;Lethbridge 1998;Sim et al 2000;Ferenc et al 2001Ferenc et al , 2002Arcelli et al 2005;Amelunxen et al 2006) as well as discussions on quality properties (Favre et al 2003;Clark et al 2015;Kurtev et al 2002;Sim et al 2000;Ferenc et al 2002;Tilley et al 1994;Saint-Denis et al 2000;Jin 2001;Jin et al 2002;Czarnecki and Helsen 2003;Christopher 2006;Wu 2010) for program metamodels and related concepts identified by the SLR were included or mapped to the items, implying that it has adequate coverage. Thus, ProMeTA is implicitly benchmarked against existing classification schemes.…”

“…Metamodels can be classified into three abstraction levels ( Fig. 9): 1) low where the metamodel represents the complete syntax of a code, 2) high where the metamodel represents abstract architectural elements, and 3) middle where the metamodel represents neither of the above (Lethbridge et al 2004). In Fig.…”

“…Regarding the abstraction level, low-level metamodels represent the complete code syntax, high-level ones represent abstract architectural constituents, while mid-level ones represent neither the complete code syntax nor the architectural constituents (Lethbridge et al 2004). Due to the differences between the metamodels, it is difficult to compare reverse engineering tools.…”