Behaviour Model Extraction from Software

Model extraction provides a means of automatically generating a model from an existing implementation, thus overcoming the problem of creating an abstraction of a system that can be used for validation and verification of properties. However, the use of model extraction creates a new problem, which is the gap between the constructs and data types of modern programming languages and the more abstract languages used to describe models. Bridging this gap using the correct mapping is essential to make the model useful for any sort of analysis. This paper describes some basic concepts and ideas involving model extraction and the most relevant existing approaches, considering their strengths and weaknesses. It also discusses the work that has been done on model extraction in our research group and challenges still open regarding the extraction of models from code.