Metamodeling With the UML: An Approach to the Formalization of the UML Metamodel

Published

June 1, 2000

Author(s)

M N. Terrasse, M Savonnet

Abstract

Due to the evolution of analysis & design requirements, the elaboration of formal specifications is becoming the bulk of new development environments. The objective of this paper is to explore the formalization of the UML metamodel without reducing the expressiveness of the Unified Modeling Language. To deal with the ambiguity of the UML metamodel, we use an original approach that relies on the four-layer metamodeling architecture. Our modeling architecture is composed of a meta-metamodeling layer populated with modeling paradigms that describe under which conditions the modeling can be carried out in a given context. Each modeling paradigm is instantiated into a formal metamodel. The metamodel layer is thus populated by an inheritance hierarchy of metamodels: the UML metamodel is the (informal) root of this hierarchy; any non-root metamodel is formalized. This architecture permits us to delay the formalization until the target metamodel may be expressed without ambiguity.

Proceedings Title

Fifth CAiSE/IFIP8.1 International Workshop on Evaluation of Modeling Methods in Systems Analysis and Design, EMMSAD '00

Conference Dates

June 5-6, 2000

Conference Location

Stockholm, SW

Conference Title

Evaluation of Modeling Methods in Systems Analysis and Design

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

four-layer architecture, metamodel formalization, metamodeling

Citation

Terrasse, M. and Savonnet, M. (2000), Metamodeling With the UML: An Approach to the Formalization of the UML Metamodel, Fifth CAiSE/IFIP8.1 International Workshop on Evaluation of Modeling Methods in Systems Analysis and Design, EMMSAD '00, Stockholm, SW (Accessed October 14, 2025)