Home // International Journal On Advances in Software, volume 18, numbers 1 and 2, 2025 // View article

Model-Based Development of Code Generators for Use in Model-Driven Development Processes

Authors:
Hans-Werner Sehring

Keywords: software development,software engineering,symbolic execution,top-down programming

Abstract:
Model-driven software development is gaining attention as a software engineering approach due to the various benefits it offers. Typical approaches start with the modeling of the application domain at hand and continue with the specification of the software to be developed. Results are documented by specific software engineering artifacts. Especially in model-driven approaches, these artifacts are formal or semi-formal models. Model transformations are applied to develop and refine artifacts. In a final step, code is generated from the models. Code can be source code written in specific programming languages, configuration files, and the like. Practice shows that model-based code generators have to bridge a rather large gap between the most refined software models and the compilable code that implements these models. This makes the development of code generators itself an expensive task. In this article, we discuss ways to break down the development of code generators into smaller steps. Our discussion is guided by both principles of compiler construction and by an application of model-driven development itself. Using a modeling language, we demonstrate how code generation can be organized to reduce development costs and increase reuse. In addition, program code becomes part of the model transformation sequence, allowing code changes to be automated and model elements to be referenced from code.

Pages: 25 to 36

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2025. Used with permission.

Publication date: June 30, 2025

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2628