Transformations using a meta-system approach to software development

A transformational approach based on a specification environment definition facility is proposed. The authors illustrate this approach through the development of a set of transformation rules expressed in a transformational language. The rules demonstrate how a formal description of a data-flow diagram in a structure analysis environment can be automatically converted, with possible design intervention, to a formal description of a structure chart in a structured design environment. The formal description of each environment is defined in the entity-aggregate-relationship-attribute (EARA) model, a meta-system model that supports multiple specification environments. To express the transformations between environments, they propose a language based on sets. The power of the approach lies in the adoption of a common formal model for representing source and target specification environments, along with the ability to express formally transformation rules, using the transformational language, between these environments. The details of the model and the rule-based transformation approach are illustrated