Formal Support for QVT-Relations with Coloured Petri Nets

摘要

QVT is the OMG standard language for specifying model-to-model transformations in MDA. Even though it plays a crucial role in model driven development, there are scarce tools supporting the execution of its sublanguage QVT-Relations, and none for its analysis or verification. In order to alleviate this situation, this paper provides a formal semantics for QVT-Relations through its compilation into Coloured Petri nets, enabling the execution and validation of QVT specifications. The theory of Petri nets provides useful techniques to analyse transformations (e.g. reachability, model-checking, boundedness and invariants) and to determine their confluence and termination given a starting model. We also report on using CPNTools for the execution, debugging, and analysis of transformations, and on a tool chain to transform QVT-Relations specifications into the input format of CPNTools.