Derived Features for EMF by Integrating Advanced Model Queries

When designing complex domain-specific languages, meta-models are frequently enriched with derived features that correspond to attribute values or references (edges) representing computed informa-tion in the model. In the popular Eclipse Modeling Framework, these are typically implemented as imperative Java code.

In the paper, we propose to integrate the EMF-IncQuery model query framework to the Ecore metamodeling infrastructure in order to facilitate the efficient and automated (re-)computation of derived attributes and references over EMF models. Such an integration allows to define derived features using an expressive graph-based model query language, and offers high performance and scalability thanks to the incremental evalu-ation technique of EMF-IncQuery. In addition, our approach offers to automate two typical associated challenges of EMF tools: (1) values of derived features are immediately recalculated upon model changes and (2) notifications are sent automatically to other EMF model elements to report changes in derived features.