Model refactorings through rule-based inconsistency resolution

Abstract

The goal of model-driven engineering is to raise the level of abstraction by shifting the focus to models. As a result, complex software development activities move to the modelling level as well. One such activity is model refactoring, a technique for restructuring the models in order to improve some quality attributes of the models. As a first contribution of this paper, we argue and show that refactoring a model is enabled by inconsistency detection and resolution. Inconsistencies in or between models occur since models typically describe a software system from different viewpoints and on different levels of abstraction. A second contribution of this paper is rule-based inconsistency resolution, which enables reuse of different inconsistency resolutions across model refactorings and manages the flow of inconsistency resolution steps automatically.