一种针对模型转换的图形化建模语言

模型转换是模型驱动开发的核心操作，它通常被实现成一种特殊的程序.模型转换可以实现不同模型、模型和代码，以及模型和各种结构化文档之间的转换.随着模型驱动方法的发展，模型转换正在被运用到越来越复杂的问题上，从而导致越来越庞大的规模和越来越复杂的程序结构.为了更好地控制转换开发过程中的复杂性，需要一种图形化的建模语言，支持对转换程序的分析和设计.提出一种针对模型转换程序的可视化建模语言VisTML(the visual transformation modeling language).它包含7种不同的视图，每个视图都包含一组建模概念.这些概念覆盖了整个转换程序开发过程中(从需求到部署运行)的所有主要阶段，支持开发人员在不同的抽象层次基于不同视角刻画模型转换.用VisTML对转换程序进行建模，有助于控制其复杂性，并促进开发人员的相互沟通与分工合作.最后介绍了VisTML的支持工具TModeler，并且通过3个案例论证VisTML的可行性与有效性.

A Graphical Modeling Language for Model Transformations

Model transformations, the core operations within model-driven development, are usually realized as special kinds of programs. They can be used to achieve diverse conversions among models, codes, and even structural documents. With the rapid progress in model-driven methodology, model transformations are being applied to more and more complicated problems in industrial projects. As a result, they become large in scale and have complex structures. To handle the development complexity of large transformation, a graphical modeling language that can serve as a user-friendly notation for analyzing and designing transformations is required. This paper proposes VisTML (the visual transformation modeling language), a visual modeling language for model transformation programs. VisTML is comprised by seven diagrams, including goal diagram, transformation declaration diagram, model type diagram, rule diagram, composite transformation diagram, testing diagram, and configuration diagram, each of which includes a set of concepts derived from concrete transformation technologies. VisTML is able to cover all the major phases when a transformation is being developed. It supports developers to describe a transformation from various viewpoints at different abstraction level. Modeling a transformation using VisTML can help developers control the complexity and facilitate their communication. Then, the tool support of VisTML named TModeler is also presented. At last, three case studies are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and the effectiveness of VisTML.