Abstract
Language-centric methodologies, triggered by the success of Domain Specific Languages, rely on precise specifications of modeling languages. While the definition of the abstract syntax is standardized by the 4-layer metamodel architecture of the OMG, most language specifications are held informally for the description of the semantics and the (graphical) concrete syntax. This paper is tackling the problem of specifying the concrete syntax of a language in a formal and non-ambiguous way. We propose to define the concrete syntax by an extension of the already existing metamodel of the abstract syntax, which describes the concepts of the language, with a second layer describing the graphical representation of concepts by visual elements. In addition, an intermediate layer defines how elements of both layers are related to each other. Unlike similar approaches that became the basis of some CASE tools, the intermediate layer is not a pure mapping from abstract to concrete syntax but connects both layers in a flexible, declarative way. We illustrate our approach with a simplified form of statecharts.
This work was supported by Hasler-Foundation, project DICS-1850.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kieburtz, R.B., McKinney, L., Bell, J.M., Hook, J., Kotov, A., Lewis, J., Oliva, D., Sheard, T., Smith, I., Walton, L.: A software engineering experiment in software component generation. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), pp. 542–552 (1996)
Kent, S.: Model driven engineering. In: Butler, M., Petre, L., Sere, K. (eds.) IFM 2002. LNCS, vol. 2335, pp. 286–298. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Mellor, S.J., Clark, A.N., Futagami, T.: Guest editors’ introduction: Model-driven development. IEEE Software 20(5), 14–18 (2003)
Halpin, T.: Information Modeling and Relational Databases: From Conceptual Analysis to Logical Design, 2nd edn. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (2003)
OMG. Meta-Object Facility (MOF) 1.4. OMG Document formal/02-04-03 (April 2002)
OMG. XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) 2.0. OMG Document formal/03-05-02 (May 2003)
Costagliola, G., De Lucia, A., Orefice, S., Polese, G.: A classification framework to support the design of visual languages. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 13(6), 573–600 (2002)
Rozenberg, G. (ed.): Handbook of Graph Grammars and Computing by Graph Transformations, Vol. 1. Foundations. World Scientific, Singapore (1997)
Harel, D.: Statecharts: A visual formulation for complex systems. Science of Computer Programming 8(3), 231–274 (1987)
Costagliola, G., Deufemia, V., Polese, G.: A framework for modeling and implementing visual notations with applications to software engineering. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) 13(4), 431–487 (2004)
de Lara, J., Vangheluwe, H.: Using AToM\(^{\mbox{3}}\) as a meta-case tool. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), pp. 642–649 (2002)
W3. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification (January 2003)
OMG. UML 2.0 diagram interchange specification - final adopted specification. OMG Document ptc/03-09-01 (September 2003)
Clark, T., Evans, A., Sammut, P., Willans, J.: Applied metamodelling: A foundation for language-driven development (2005), Available at http://albini.xactium.com
Emerson, M.J., Sztipanovits, J., Bapty, T.: A MOF-based metamodeling environment. Journal of Universal Computer Science 10(10), 1357–1382 (2004)
Honeywell: Dome users guide (2000), http://www.htc.honeywell.com/dome/support.htm
MetaCase. Abc to metacase technology. White Paper (2004), http://www.metacase.com/papers
Schürr, A.: Specification of graph translators with triple graph grammars. In: Mayr, E.W., Schmidt, G., Tinhofer, G. (eds.) WG 1994. LNCS, vol. 903, pp. 151–163. Springer, Heidelberg (1995)
GenGED Team. GenGED homepage (2005), http://tfs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~genged/
Bardohl, R., Ehrig, H., de Lara, J.: Integrating meta-modelling aspects with graph transformation for efficient visual language definition and model manipulation. In: Wermelinger, M., Margaria-Steffen, T. (eds.) FASE 2004. LNCS, vol. 2984, pp. 214–228. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Cabot, J., Teniente, E.: Determining the structural events that may violate an integrity constraint. In: Baar, T., Strohmeier, A., Moreira, A., Mellor, S.J. (eds.) UML 2004. LNCS, vol. 3273, pp. 320–334. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fondement, F., Baar, T. (2005). Making Metamodels Aware of Concrete Syntax. In: Hartman, A., Kreische, D. (eds) Model Driven Architecture – Foundations and Applications. ECMDA-FA 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3748. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11581741_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11581741_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-30026-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32093-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)