A Generic Framework for Realizing Semantic Model Differencing Operators

As models constitute the main software artifacts in model-driven engineering, managing their evolution has attracted much research. One important technique in this realm is model differencing concerned with identifying differences among models. The majority of existing model differencing approaches identify differences by applying a fine-grained analysis of models based on their abstract syntax representation. Thereby, syntactic differences among models can be revealed. However, syntactic differences can only approximate semantic differences among models. We propose a generic framework for realizing semantic model differencing operators revealing semantic differences among models [7]. Therefore, we utilize the behavioral semantics specification of the considered modeling language to execute the models to be compared and capture execution traces providing semantic interpretations over the models. By comparing these semantic interpretations, semantic differences among models can be identified.