1. Enabling UCM-based transformations
UCMExporter
Enabling UCM-based transformations

2. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
Summary
Background Information
The benefit of having UCMExporter
The problems and challenges
How UCMExporter works
Detailed features of the transformation process (customization, connectors for causality, naming the connectors, parallel synthesizing)
A demonstration
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

3. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
Motivation
Enabling the transformation of UCM requirements scenarios to design and testing scenario notations.
Tool Support
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

4. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
Previous Work
UCMNav
MSC direct (Andrew Miga, 2001)
Scenario in XML (Xiangyang He, 2002)
MSC via XML (S. Cui, D.Y. Cho, )
TTCN (Bryan Mulvihill, 2003)
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

5. Benefits of Using UCMExporter
Can use UCMNav for the requirements phase.
UCM communicate better the Use Cases to clients and engineers
Generate MSC and SD to do the design
Test
Automatic
Customizable
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

6. Technologies and Tools
Java (Eclipse): Implementation
XML with JDOM: XML parsing and building
XSLT with XSLTC: transforming XML documents
UCMNav 2: creating Use Case Maps
Rational Rose: Viewing Sequence Diagrams
Unisys XMI Add-on: importing/exporting XMI documents for Rational Rose
Tau 4.4: viewing MSC’s
Xselerator: creating and testing the XSL transformations
JDOM:
XSLT
XMI:
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

7. UCMExporter: Black Box View
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

8. Problems and Challenges
A need for a detailed mapping between UCM concepts and MSC and SD.
XMI does not define the diagram layout.
No tool does an auto-layout of the XMI file.
No tool provides documentation on how it does its layout.
Allowing for customization (e.g. protocols).
Centralizing the logic for future changes.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

9. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
A Sample UCMNavXML
Refers to XML file generated with UCMNav.
Describes one or more scenarios.
A scenario is a path in the UCM
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

10. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
UCM2TTCN
Input: a UCMNavXML file
Output: test cases (.ttcn and .mlf)
XSL sheet written by Bryan Mulvihill.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

11. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
UCM2MSC: Previous Work
There was a previous work to generate MSC from UCMNavXML using XSL only.
The mapping between UCM and MSC was defined.
However, the XSL sheet was complicated.
Work done by S. Cui
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

12. UCM2XMI: First Approach
Input: UCMNavXML
A Java class that will parse the input and generate the output.
First Step: Generating “pure” XMI
Second Step: Adding tool specific diagram information. (learning by example)
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

13. Expressing Parallelism with SD
Comments, colors, labels?
Comments need to be placed in specific locations (near the beginning and end).
Rose discards the location information.
Colors are discarded too.
Labels are used (p1.s1, p1.s1.p1.s1)
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

14. Parallelism Example for SD
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

15. The Need for an Intermediate Step
Both UCM2MSC and UCM2XMI became very complicated, and had many things in common.
Putting things in common to (current and future) transformations in one place (e.g. finding instances) will improve code quality.
Defect fixing, code maintenance & evolution will become much easier.
Steps after the intermediate step should become straight forward (since all info should be ready)
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

16. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
XMLInputTransform
Package for the intermediate step. Hides complexity.
Responsible for preparing the information needed for the transformations (e.g. instances, messages…)
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

17. UCMExporterXML: Sample 1
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

18. Advantages of Intermediate Step
UCM2MSC became a fairly simple XSL sheet (as XSL is supposed to be used)
Same thing for the first step of UCM2XMI
The second step of UCM2XMI was not effected.
All future improvements will only effect the intermediate step
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

19. XMLInputTransform: A Detailed Look
Makes instances and components readily available.
Connectors: preserve causality.
Preserving causality with parallelism has separate rules.
All logic is localized: better maintenance.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

20. UCMExporterXMLInputTransformer
Triggers the transformation (intermediate) step.
Asks MessageSynthesizer to identify the messages and connectors.
Asks ParallelConnectorMessagesSynthesizer to find connectors related to parallel behavior.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

21. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
MessageSynthesizer
Defines the mapping between UCM and messages and connectors.
Mapping is general to cover both MSC and SD. (e.g. is-task, timer-property)
Changes in the mapping only effect this class.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

22. ParallelConnectorMessagesSynthesizer
Preserves causality in parallel behavior.
A more elaborate parsing of the UCMNavXML compared to MessageSynthesizer.
Needs to know what is before, inside, and after a parallel block.
Uses XSL to gather that information.
Uses Java to insert new connectors
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

23. Parallel Connector Rules: E1
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

24. Parallel Connector Rules: E2
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

25. Parallel Connector Rules: E3
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

26. Parallel Connector Rules: E4
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

27. UCMExporterXML: Sample 2
Messages keep enough information for the transformations to make decisions.
Something that is used only by one transformation can be invisible to others. (thanks to XSL).
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

28. More Features in Intermediate Step
Architecture allows for improving intermediate step. Invisible to transformations.
By improving the intermediate step we improve the transformations (give them more correct information to work with)
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

29. Generating Descriptive Names
Connectors were called m1, m2
We want m1 to mean the same thing in separate MSC.
Simple approach: did_X_do_Y
Users can customize.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

30. Customizing Connector Messages
Can use a specific protocol for connectors.
Can specify own way of naming
Can specify protocol between specific instances.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

31. Parallel Interleaving
User might choose to generate all possibilities (for a synthesizer)
Goal: Generate one scenario for each possible parallel sequence interleaving.
Now doing the simplest possibility: taking sequences in order they are given in UCMNavXML.
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

32. UCMExporter: Sample Use
Generate UCMNavXML with UCMNav
Generate XMI, MSC, TTCN for the scenarios.
Customize the communication patterns with your own XSL.
Ask for parallel interleavings (now only the simplest form)
View SD with Rational Rose
View MSC with Tau 4.4
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

33. UCMExporter: Big Picture
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

34. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
Demonstration
Input: Model simpletelephone ScenarioTLnotActiveSuccess
Output MSC, XMI
View results
Customization example
Interleavings
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE

35. Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE
Thank You
February 5, 2019
Ali Echihabi – University of Ottawa, SITE