A metamodel-based representation method for reusable simulation model
Proceedings of the 39th conference on Winter simulation: 40 years! The best is yet to come
Correctly defined concrete syntax for visual modeling languages
MoDELS'06 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems
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Today, the syntax of visual specification languages suchas UML is typically defined using meta-modelling techniques.However, this kind of syntax definition has drawbacks.In particular, graphic meta-models are not powerfulenough, so they must be augmented by a textual constraintlanguage.As an alternative, we present in this paper, a text-basedtechnique for the syntax definition of a graphic specificationlanguage. We exploit the fact that in a graphic specificationlanguage, most syntactic features are independent ofthe layout of the graph. So we map the graphic elements totextual ones and define the context-free syntax of this textuallanguage in EBNF. Using our mapping, this grammar alsodefines the syntax of the graphic language. Simple spatialand context-sensitive constraints are then added by attributingthe context-free grammar. Finally, for handling complexstructural and dynamic information in the syntax, we give aset of operational rules that work on the attributed EBNF.We explain our syntax definition technique by applyingit to the modelling language ADORA which is being developedin our research group. We also briefly discuss the applicationof our technique to the syntax definition of UML.At last we mention the advantages of our method overthe metamodeling techniques.