Validation of Derived Features and Well-Formedness Constraints in DSLs - By Mapping Graph Queries to an SMT-Solver

Despite the wide range of existing generative tool support, constructing a design environment for a complex domain-speci c language (DSL) is still a tedious task as the large number of derived features and well-formedness constraints complementing the domain metamodel necessitate special handling. Incremental model queries as provided by the EMF-IncQuery framework can (i) uniformly specify derived features and well-formedness constraints and (ii) automatically refresh their result set upon model changes. However, for complex domains, derived features and constraints can be formalized incorrectly resulting in incomplete, ambiguous or inconsistent DSL speci cations. To detect such issues, we propose an automated mapping of EMF metamodels enriched with derived features and well-formedness constraints captured as graph queries in EMF-IncQuery into an e ectively propositional fragment of rst-order logic which can be e ciently analyzed by the Z3 SMT-solver. Moreover, overapproximations are proposed for complex query features (like transitive closure and recursive calls) Our approach will be illustrated on analyzing DSL being developed for the avionics domain.