Metamodeling and method engineering GOPRR metamodeling language

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Metamodeling and method engineering GOPRR
metamodeling language

• Juha-Pekka Tolvanen
• 8.3.2004
• Lecture 5 GOPRR metamodeling language
• Contents
• Syntax and semantics
• Instance examples
• Metamodeling task

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Metamodeling concepts of GOPRR

• Concepts
• Graph
• Object
• Property
• Role
• Relationship
• Port
• Rules, e.g.
• Max 1
• Min 1
• Unique, etc
• Links between models
• Reuse rules

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GOPRR metamodeling concepts

• What (meta)elements GOPRR detect from the DFD
• Graphs and their contents
• Objects
• Relationships
• Roles
• Bindings among Objs, Rels, Roles
• Properties
• Links of properties to other non-properties
• Linkages to other models

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Metamodeling languages Graph

• A concept of GRAPH
• A collection of object, relationship and role
  types, and bindings describing how these can be
  connected.
• reuse of objects, relationships and roles
• binds a set of object, relationship and role
  types
• Binding can be n-ary, method specifies
  cardinality of each role type
• Bindings can have connectivity rules (e.g. single
  inheritance allowed only)
• A graph type usually denotes a modeling
  technique
• class diagrams
• state diagram
• Has properties in the same way as an object
• class model has a name, owner, date, version.
• Represented by a window symbol

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Metamodeling languages Object

• A concept of OBJECT
• An object describes a thing that can exist on its
  own (independently of relationships and roles)
• Object type names are typically nouns.
• Objects are part of a graph
• Objects can be characterized with properties
• Examples
• process
• class
• attribute
• Represented by a rectangle

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Metamodeling languages Property

• A concept of PROPERTY
• Properties describe characteristics of instances
  of other types.
• Property type names are generally nouns or
  adverbs.
• Examples include class name, cardinality, and
  attributes.
• Each property type has a basic data type (e.g.
  number, string, Boolean, text, another type
  (graph, object, role or relationship), or a
  collection of one of these).
• A collection data type is represented with a
  double ellipse.

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Property definition Properties of class
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Metamodeling languages Relationship

• A concept of RELATIONSHIP
• A relationship can exists between objects. It
  connects objects through roles.
• Semantically, relationships are usually verbs,
  but relationship type names are sometimes also
  nouns or adverbs.
• Examples include
• inheritance
• call
• usage
• Represented by a diamond

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Metamodeling languages Role

• A concept of ROLE
• A role specifies how an object participates in a
  relationship.
• Semantically, roles are adverbs. Role type names
  are often prepositional phrases or verbs.
• Examples include
• subclass
• from
• receives
• Represented by a circle

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Metamodeling languages Inclusion

• An inclusion relationship can exist between a
  graph type and its components (i.e. object,
  relationship, and role types).
• Inclusion is used to combine all the main
  components of a technique.
• Inclusion is many-to-many, so that the same type
  can belong to many graph types.
• Graph forms an unit for some rules
• cardinality
• connectivity
• explosions

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Metamodeling languages Binding

• Participation
• An object type can participate in zero to many
  role types.
• In a graph type, a role type must be related to
  at least one object type.
• Composition
• Relationship types are related with at least two
  compositions to role instances
• Role instances note cardinality constraint
• Together with a participation, this forms a
  binding
• Each role type in a binding is characterized with
  a cardinality constraint describing
• how many instances of this role type must
  (minimum) or
• may (maximum) occur in an instantiation of this
  binding
• Graph constraints for binary/n-ary relationships

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Metamodeling languages Property of

• A property can characterize instances of other
  types (i.e. non-properties).
• This relation is described in a metamodel with
  the property of relationship.
• Each property of relationship is specified
  further with three constraints
• 1) Id to describe if the property type is used as
  a naming property (a non-property type can have
  only one id),
• 2) Uniqueness to specify if there is no
  duplication of property values allowed among
  instantiations of this property of
  relationship, and
• 3) Local name to define a name for this use of
  the property type.
• two non-property types can refer to the same
  property type but with different labels

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Metamodeling languages Property link

• The data type of a property type can be itself a
  non-property type
• This is defined with a property link relationship
  from the property type to a non-property type
• Same property can be shared by different objects,
  e.g.
• operation name of class
• event of state transition

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Metamodeling languages Explosion

• An object, relationship or role can be linked to
  one or more graphs via an explosion
• Explosion is typically used between different
  graph types
• Explosion is graph-sensitive
• the same object can explode elsewhere in another
  graph
• Examples include that a process in a data flow
  diagram can be related to a state diagram and to
  process specifications

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Metamodeling languages Decomposition

• An object can be decomposed into a new graph.
• This feature is known as functional decomposition
  in data flow diagrams, or leveling of graphs to
  form a hierarchy
• The decomposition target is typically of the same
  graph type as the sources containing graph
• Only one decomposition is allowed for each object
  instance, and it applies in all graphs containing
  that object
• There may be a set of graph types specified as
  possible decomposition targets for an object
  type, and this set may be different in each graph
  type where this object type is used.

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Example mapping resources to org
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A larger example BPR
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Metamodeling task

• Make a metamodel of DFD by using GOPRR

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About metamodel presentation

• Graphical models good when designing the method
• MetaEdit applies form-based metamodeling tools

Rules
Generators
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4
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Concepts
Symbols