Benoit Combemale, Laure Gonnord, Vlad Rusu. A Generic Tool for Tracing Executions Back to a DSML's Operational Semantics. In Seventh European Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications. 2011.
Model-driven engineering (MDE) allows one to define the syntax of Domain Specific Modelling Languages (DSML) in terms of metamodels. The behaviour of a language can also be described, either directly, using language-engineering tools such as Kermeta, or indirectly, via transformations to other languages (e.g., input language of a model checker for analysis, or general programming language for execution). The second approach is typically more efficient, since the target languages can be chosen to be the best at what they do. However, the results of execution or analysis (e.g., a program crash log, or a counterexample returned by a model checker) may not be straightforward to interpret by the users of the original DSML. We propose in this paper a generic tool for formally tracing such analysis/execution results back to the original DSML’s syntax and operational semantics, and we illustrate it on xSPEM, a timed process modelling language.