Grammar-based model transformations

Model transformation is a key concept in modeldrivensoftware engineering. The definition of model transformationsis usually based on meta-models describing the abstractsyntax of languages. While meta-models are thereby able to abstractfrom superfluous details of concrete syntax, they often loosestructural information inherent in languages, like information onmodel elements always occurring together in particular shapes.As a consequence, model transformations cannot naturally re-uselanguage structures, thus leading to unnecessary complexity intheir development as well as analysis.In this paper, we propose a new approach to model transformationdevelopment which allows to simplify and improve thequality of the developed transformations via the exploitation ofthe languages’ structures. The approach is based on context-freegrammars and transformations defined by pairing productions ofsource and target grammars. We show that such transformationsexhibit three important characteristics: they are sound, completeand deterministic.