Incremental Detection of Model Inconsistencies Based on Model Operations

Due to the increasing use of models, and the inevitable model inconsistencies that arise during model-based software development and evolution, model inconsistency detection is gaining more and more attention. Inconsistency checkers typically analyze entire models to detect undesired structures as defined by inconsistency rules. The larger the models become, the more time the inconsistency detection process takes. Taking into account model evolution, one can significantly reduce this time by providing an incremental checker. In this article we propose an incremental inconsistency checker based on the idea of representing models as sequences of primitive construction operations. The impact of these operations on the inconsistency rules can be computed to analyze and reduce the number of rules that need to be re-checked during a model increment.