Rule-Based Specification of Behavioral Consistency Based on the UML Meta-model

Object-oriented modeling favors the modeling of object behavior from different viewpoints and at different levels of abstraction. This gives rise to consistency problems between overlapping or semantically related submodels. The absence of a formal semantics for the UML and the numerous ways of employing the language within the development process lead to a number of different consistency notions. Therefore, general meta-level techniques are required for specifying, analyzing, and communicating consistency constraints. In this paper, we discuss the issue of consistency of behavioral models in the UML and present techniques for specifying and analyzing consistency. Using meta-model rules we transform elements of UML models into a semantic domain. Then, consistency constraints can by specified and validated using the language and the tools of the semantic domain. This general methodology is exemplified by the problem of protocol statechart inheritance.