Hierarchical reflexion models

The reflexion model originally proposed by Murphyand Notkin allows one to structurally validate a descriptiveor prescriptive architecture model against asource model.First, the entities in the source modelare mapped onto the architectural model, then discrepanciesbetween the architecture model and source modelare computed automatically.The original reflexion model allows an analyst tospecify only non-hierarchical models, whichis insufficient for larger systems that are decomposedinto hierarchical subsystems.This paper extends theoriginal reflexion model to hierarchical architecturemodels, describes a method to apply this technique, andreports on case studies conducted on two large-scale andcomplex applications (namely, the C compiler sdcc for8-bit microprocessors and the GNU C compiler gcc).