Difference between pages "D23 UML-B" and "CamilleX"

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=== Overview ===
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This part of the deliverable describes improvements to the UML-B plug-in feature, which is the responsibility of University of Southampton.
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Return to [[Rodin Plug-ins]]
  
A new plug-in feature has been developed to provide animation of UML-B state-machine diagrams. This feature was developed by University of Southampton.
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The CamilleX feature provides text editors for XContexts and and XMachines which then compiled automatically to Event-B contexts and machines.
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Extension to Event-B including the ''machine inclusion'' mechanism is also supported.
  
The longer term development of UML-B relies on an EMF representation of Event-B. The development of a new EMF Event-B plugin-in feature is also described in this section. This feature was initially developed by University of Southampton, Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf and University of Newcastle. It is now mostly maintained and developed by University of Southampton.
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=== Motivations ===
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Please have a look also at the [[CamilleX User Guide]].
  
====UML-B improvements====
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=== Current version ===
The current version of the UML-B tool has been improved to support the refinement of  state-machines. At the last deliverable, refinement of classes was supported and state-machine refinement was beginning to be investigated. The investigation has experimented several notation and methodological alternatives. The design has now been finalised and an implementation has been achieved. State-machines can be refined by adding nested state-machines inside states. Some of the transitions in the nested state-machine do not represent new events but contribute to the refinements of existing transitions in the parent state-machine. A concept of ''transition elaboration'' has been invented to represent this relationship.
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The CamilleX version 2.1.0 is available as a separate feature from the main Soton Plug-in update site (under the ''CamilleX'' category).  Notice that the Soton plug-in update site is now included in the composite Rodin Update Site.
  
Many other minor improvements have been made to the UML-B tool including:
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=== Principles ===
collapsing empty compartments on diagrams,
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The CamilleX editors (i.e., XContext and XMachine editors) operate on the separate XContext and XMachine text file and they are compiled to the Rodin files.
improved navigation between diagrams,
 
improved properties views,
 
ability to order classes and class-types in the translation,
 
support for theorems everywhere (i.e. invariants and axioms can now be designated as theorems).
 
 
 
====UML-B State-machine Animation====
 
This feature was developed in response to a requirement from Siemens Transportation. Several state-machines can be selected (representing refinements and hierarchical nesting) for simultaneous animation. The animation relies on Pro-B animation of the corresponding Event-B models (that have been automatically generated by UML-B). The animated diagrams show the currently active states and the enabled transitions. Events can be 'fired' by clicking on the enabled transition. Where the state-machine belongs to a class, instances of the class can be seen moving from state to state.
 
 
 
====EMF Framework for Event-B====
 
 
 
An EMF (Eclipse Modelling Framework) based representation of Event-B was developed and made available as a plug-in feature for Rodin. This enables Event-B machines and contexts to be loaded into EMF based tools. Serialisation (i.e. loading and saving) is performed via the Rodin API. This feature can be viewed as an ''enabling technology''. Hence motivation derives from several sources including:
 
* A Text editor was requested by several industrial and academic partners - A fully-featured EMF based text editor ('''Camille''') has been developed by Duesseldorf and is now available.
 
* Team-working facilities are required by all industrial partners (particularly Bosch and SSF) - EMF Compare/merge tools are now under investigation to support a '''teamworking''' repository plug-in feature.
 
* '''UML-B integration''' - since UML-B is based on EMF, the development of an EMF representation of Event-B enables UML-B concepts to be added as extensions.
 
 
 
=== Choices / Decisions ===
 
 
 
====UML-B improvements====
 
 
 
The methods and modelling notations for refinement in UML-B were developed by experimentation using a case study of an ATM. The use of hierarchical nested state-machines (which were already available in UML-B) as a technique for adding detail in refinement was quickly adapted by making changes to the meta-model and translation. This technique was found to be suitable. Some further experimentation was needed in order to understand the need to link transitions of the nested state-machines with those in their parent. A concept of ''elaboration'' was introduced, whereby an elaborating  transition contributes guards and actions to the event produced from the elaborated parent transition. Transitions splitting (analogous to event splitting in Event-B refinements) is a natural consequence of refinement of states. An idea to ''bundle'' the split transitions in the parent state-machine so that the correspondence with the abstract refined state-machine is more obvious has not been pursued for now since it would add complication to the tooling.
 
 
 
====UML-B State-machine Animation====
 
Initially, we attempted to model the animation state information as an extension to the UML-B meta-model. We discovered technological difficulties in extending EMF models in this way. Therefore,  we adopted an alternative solution using an independent meta-model of animation diagrams. These replicate parts of the structure of UML-B but add meta-properties to model the animation. When a model is to be animated, an animation model is constructed programmatically to match the UML-B model. Thereafter, the animation runs independently of UML-B. This has the additional benefit that the diagram can be simplified and tailored to better suit animation. For example, removing the editing palette.
 
 
 
====EMF Framework for Event-B====
 
The structure of the EMF meta-model for Event-B was studied in great detail. Various options for  sub-packaging the model were tried but it has been found that it is more convenient for users to keep a simple package structure. Currently this consists of three packages; a ''core'' package containing abstract basis and project level meta-model, a ''machine'' package and a ''context'' package. A flexible abstract basis has been derived through experimentation. The abstract basis consists of an inheritance hierarchy of abstract meta-classes which provide great flexibility for writing code that deals with the meta-model in as generic a manner as possible. A driving factor in the design was to support both project level tools and component level tools. The latter should be able to manipulate a single machine or context without loading referenced components. This was achieved customising the EMF proxies (used in references) so that they are calculated lazily (when a request to resolve is received).
 
 
 
=== Available Documentation ===
 
 
 
UML-B Refinement is described in a paper which was presented at the FM2009 conference in Eindhoven. It is available here:
 
:http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18268/
 
 
 
A tutorial on how to refine state-machines is available on the wiki:
 
:[[Refinement_of_Statemachines]]
 
 
 
State-machine animation is described on the wiki here:
 
:[[UML-B_-_Statemachine_Animation]]
 
It is also available as a short paper here:
 
:http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18261/
 
 
 
The EMF Framework for Event-B is described on the wiki here:
 
:[[EMF_framework_for_Event-B]]
 
It is also available as a short paper here:
 
:http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18262/
 
 
 
=== Planning ===
 
 
 
UML-B integration
 
* Develop extensibility mechanisms for EMF Event-B framework via experimentation with structured data (Records) plug-in.
 
* Re-engineer UML-B Context diagrams as a diagrammatic view of Records
 
 
 
* Re-engineer UML-B package diagram based on EMF Event-B framework.
 

Latest revision as of 13:09, 19 July 2021

Return to Rodin Plug-ins

The CamilleX feature provides text editors for XContexts and and XMachines which then compiled automatically to Event-B contexts and machines. Extension to Event-B including the machine inclusion mechanism is also supported.


Please have a look also at the CamilleX User Guide.

Current version

The CamilleX version 2.1.0 is available as a separate feature from the main Soton Plug-in update site (under the CamilleX category). Notice that the Soton plug-in update site is now included in the composite Rodin Update Site.

Principles

The CamilleX editors (i.e., XContext and XMachine editors) operate on the separate XContext and XMachine text file and they are compiled to the Rodin files.