Ontology-Based
Transformation and Verification of UML Class Model
Abdul Hafeez1, Syed Abbas2,
and Aqeel-ur-Rehman3
1Department
of Computer Science, SMI University, Karachi
2Faculty
Engineering Science and Technology, Indus University, Karachi
3Faculty of Engineering Science and Technology, Hamdard University,
Karachi
Abstract: Software models describe structures, relationships and features
of the software system. Especially, in Model Driven Engineering (MDE), they are
considered as first-class elements instead of programming code and all software
development activities move around these models. In MDE, programming code is
automatically generated by the models and models’ defects can implicitly
transfer to the code. These defects can harder to discover and rectify. Model
verification is a promising solution to the problem. The Unified Modelling
Language (UML) class model is an important part of UML and is used in both
analysis and design. However, UML only provides graphical elements without any
formal foundation. Therefore, verification of formal properties such as
consistency, satisfiability and consequences are not possible in UML. This
paper mainly focuses on ontology-based transformation and verification of the
UML class model elements which have not been addressed in any existing
verification methods e.g. xor association constraint, and dependencies
relationships. We validate the scalability and effectiveness of the proposed
solution using various UML class models. The empirical study shows that the proposed
approach scales in the presence of the large and complex model.
Keywords: UML Class Model Verification, Dependency Relationship, XOR
Association Constraints.
Received
September 11, 2017; accepted January 28, 2019