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Unified Modelling Language (UML) is essentially a de‐facto standard for software modeling and supported with many modeling tools. In this study, 58 UML tools have been analysed for modelling viewpoints, analysis, transformation & export, collaboration, tool integration, scripting, project management, and knowledge management. The analysis results reveal important findings: (i) 11 UML tools support multiple viewpoints, (ii) 17 tools support large‐viewpoint management, (iii) Umple and Reactive Blocks support formal verification, (iv) 9 tools support the simulation of activity diagrams, (v) while 14 tools check pre‐defined well‐formedness rules, 8 of them support user‐defined rules, (vi) 16 tools support scripting, (vii) 29 tools support code‐generation and 18 of them support round‐trip engineering, (viii) Java is the top popular language, (ix) 38 tools export UML models as image, 32 tools export as HTML, and 32 tools export as XML/XMI, (x) 17 tools enable versioning and 13 of them support multi‐user access, (xi) 15 tools support the plug‐in extensions and 12 tools support the IDE integration, (xii) 6 tools support project management, and (xiii) while most tools provide user‐manuals, interactive guidance is rarely supported. The results will be helpful for practitioners in choosing the right tool(s) and the tool developers in determining the weaknesses/strengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fully automatic translation of unified modeling language (UML) models to complete source code is not reported so far because some implementation details will not be there in the model, or a single UML model is not enough for complete code generation, or some model elements may not be directly convertible to source code. These issues are addressed in this study. The authors take workflow modelling and automation as the focus of their research. Hence, UML activity diagram is considered. Activity diagram alone cannot give the implementation details like object interactions. A formal association is found between activity and sequence diagrams to add object interaction details to the work flow. Moreover, the authors formulate an algorithm, Am_To_Prototype, which is composed of two subroutines named Method_Body & Excecution_Logic, to generate code from the combined model of activity and sequence diagrams consisting of concurrent activities. The authors compare the proposed method with other research outcomes with respect to workflow automation, support for concurrency, etc. The proposed algorithms are able to generate class definition, method definition and control flow. A case study is presented that demonstrates the algorithm, to generate Java code for the ATM operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design by contract (DbC) is a software development methodology that focuses on clearly defining the interfaces between components to produce better quality object-oriented software. Though there exists ample support for DbC for sequential programs, applying DbC to concurrent programs presents several challenges. Using Java as the target programming language, we tackle such challenges by augmenting the Java Modelling Language (JML) and modifying the JML compiler (jmlc) to generate runtime assertion checking code to support DbC in concurrent programs. We applied our solution in a carefully designed case study on a highly concurrent industrial software system from the telecommunications domain to assess the effectiveness of contracts as test oracles in detecting and diagnosing functional faults in concurrent software. Based on these results, clear and objective requirements are defined for contracts to be effective test oracles for concurrent programs whilst balancing the effort to design them. Effort is measured indirectly through the contract complexity measure (CCM), a measure we define. Main results include that contracts of a realistic level of completeness and complexity can detect around 76 percent of faults and reduce the diagnosis effort for such faults tenfold. We, therefore, show that DbC can be applied to concurrent software and can be a valuable tool to improve the economics of software engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A component based modeling language with the component interfaces derived from the elements of the Petri net theory called CNet is presented in this paper. In contrast to IEC 61499 function blocks that define the flow of events and data separately, CNet models them combined as colored tokens. The event-discrete behavior of CNet components is described by a special class of colored Petri nets with timed arcs and sharpened semantics in order to allow automatic generation of possibly concurrent Java code. In this paper, the state space of CNet components is analyzed and a novel event-discrete "handler-based" execution model that implicitly models an automaton is introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]