Lightweight Executability Analysis of Graph Transformation Rules

Domain Specific Visual Languages (DSVLs) play a cornerstone role in Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), where (domain specific) models are used to automate the production of the final application. Graph Transformation is a formal, visual, rule-based technique, which is increasingly used in MDE to express in-place model transformations like refactorings, animations and simulations. However, there is currently a lack of methods able to perform static analysis of rules, taking into account the DSVL meta-model integrity constraints. In this paper we propose a lightweight, efficient technique that performs static analysis of the weak executability of rules. The method determines if there is some scenario in which the rule can be safely applied, without breaking the meta-model constraints. If no such scenario exists, the method returns meaningful feedback that helps repairing the detected inconsistencies.