Model transformation language

Presentation

Ubiquitous transformations

The notion of Model transformation is of central importance to Information Technology. A software system may be seen as a saet of information transformations. The Unix system itself may be viewed as a framework to use and to build transformation programs from basic transformation languages like grep,sed,awk, perl, etc. A software developement process itself may also be considered as a chain of transformation from abstract requirements to executable systems.

Thransormation in the Model Engineering field

It seems then quite natural that each technical space provides basic transformation tools for expressing the correspondances between the various concerned data format. For example the XML document technical spaces provides XSLT to transform XML to XML, to HTMl or to basic text. There is no surprize if transformation has become a central element in Model driven Engineering.

=Model Transformation at OMG

The OMG has defined a specific standard for model transformation called MOF/QVT or in short QVT. Several model transformation languages like VIATRA or ATL are presently available, with different level of compliance with the QVT standard. Model transformation is a critical component of MDA. Recognizing this, an RFP (Request for proposal) has been issued by OMG on MOF Query/Views/Transformations to seek a standard compatible with the MDA recommendation suite (UML, MOF, OCL, etc.).

References

The MDA Journal: Model Driven Architecture Straight From The Masters
Model Driven Architecture: Applying MDA to Enterprise Computing, David S. Frankel, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-31920-1

External links

Czarnecki, K, and Helsen, S : Classification of Model Transformation Approaches. In: Proceedings of the OOPSLA'03 Workshop on the Generative Techniques in the Context Of Model-Driven Architecture, Anaheim, California, USA. Webpublished.
Gronmo, R, and Oldevik, J : An Empirical Study of the UML Model Transformation Tool (UMT). [[1]]