Automatically generating and adapting model constraints to support co-evolution of design models

Abstract

Design models must abide by constraints that can come from diverse sources, like their metamodels, requirements, or the problem domain. Software modelers expect these constraints to be enforced on their models and receive instant error feedback if they fail. This works well when constraints are stable. However, constraints may evolve much like their models do. This evolution demands efficient constraint adaptation mechanisms to ensure that models are always validated against the correct constraints. In this paper, we present an idea based on constraint templates that tackles this evolution scenario by automatically generating and updating constraints.