On the conformity of models: a transducer-based approach for model transformation

Model transformation is one of the main operations in model engineering. It consists of transforming a source model to a target one. Any transformation needs to satisfy some basic requirements, namely the conformity of a model to its meta-model. Such model is thus said to be valid. In the litterature, several approaches and languages have been proposed. While they exhibit important features, they unfortunately suffer from a main drawback. Indeed, it is difficult to check whether the target model is valid or not. The paper advances the state of the art by proposing a new approach for model transformation that palliates the above limitation. The basic idea behind this approach is to define model transformation as a binary relation, captured by a transducer, between two domains. The use of transducer makes it possible to both translate models and to validate them. Note that the proposed approach establishes a bridge from model space to grammar space.