Model Transformation Testing and Debugging:A Survey

Abstraction

Model transformations are the key technique in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) to manipulate and construct models. As a consequence, the correctness of software systems built with MDE approaches relies mainly on the correctness of model transformations, and thus, detecting and locating bugs in model transformations have been popular research topics in recent years. This surge of work has led to a vast literature on model transformation testing and debugging, which makes it challenging to gain a comprehensive view of the current state-of-the-art. This is an obstacle for newcomers to this topic and MDE practitioners to apply these approaches. This article presents a survey on testing and debugging model transformations based on the analysis of 140 papers on the topics. We explore the trends, advances, and evolution over the years, bringing together previously disparate streams of work and providing a comprehensive view of these thriving areas. In addition, we present a conceptual framework to understand and categorize the different proposals. Finally, we identify several open research challenges and propose specific action points for the model transformation community.

本文是研究“模型转换测试和调试”的综述，通过对140篇论文的调研，从不同的角度分析了现有该领域工作的特点，包括进行分类和讨论。

  • 第一章介绍论文动机和文章结构。
  • 第二章介绍研究背景，包括一些基本术语：元模型、模型转换和先前的一些工作。
  • 第三章介绍了本文所用使用的分类方法，围绕图4中展示的结构对测试和调试环节进行分类梳理（也就是说不是所有的140篇论文都涵盖这个图4的全流程）。
  • 第四章讲论文调研的流程，包括主要的四个问题、论文收集和选择标准、数据分类等。
  • 第五章进入正题，回答问题一“每个论文的测试过程重点研究了什么？”，开始围绕四个问题就收集到的论文和分类结果进行一一陈述。其中5.2讨论的Test Oracle是有关模型转换理念的分类
  • 第六章回答问题二“模型转换调试的方法是什么？”。
  • 第七章回答问题三“如何评估模型转换方法？”。7.1节先介绍了调研中提到的一些工具，7.2节介绍一些案例，但没有介绍具体的评估方法。
  • 第八章回答问题四“未来挑战有哪些？”。