Precise Modeling of Design Patterns in UML

• Main Authors: Mak, Jeffrey K. H., Choy, Clifford S. T., Lun, Daniel P. K.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Computer science; control theory; systems; Computing methodologies > Modeling and simulation > Model development and analysis; Exact sciences and technology; Software; Software and its engineering > Software creation and management > Software development techniques > Object oriented development; Software and its engineering > Software notations and tools > Development frameworks and environments > Object oriented frameworks; Software and its engineering > Software notations and tools > General programming languages > Language features > Patterns; Software and its engineering > Software notations and tools > General programming languages > Language types; Software and its engineering > Software notations and tools > System description languages > Specification languages; Software engineering; Theory of computation > Logic > Programming logic; Theory of computation > Semantics and reasoning > Program reasoning; Theory of computation > Semantics and reasoning > Program reasoning > Program specifications
• ISSN: 0270-5257
• DOI: 10.5555/998675.999430

Prior research attempts to formalize the structure ofobject-oriented design patterns for a more precisespecification of design patterns. It also allows automationsupport to be developed for user-defined design patternsin the future CASE tools. Targeting to a particular type ofautomation (e.g. verification of pattern instances),previous specification approaches over-specify patternstructures to a certain extend. Over-specification makespattern specification ambiguous and disallows thespecification language to be used for specifyingcompound patterns. In this paper, we present thestructural properties of design patterns which reveal thetrue abstract nature of pattern structures. To supportthese properties so as to solve the over-specificationproblem, we propose an extension to UML 1.5 (basicallyUML 1.4 with Action semantics). The specialization andrefining mechanism of UML provides also a smoothsupport for the instantiation, refinement and integrationof pattern structures specified in UML. Our work makesno significant extension to the UML 1.5 meta-model butmore in a UML Profile approach to ease the migration ofour work to UML 2.0, which has not yet officiallyreleased by OMG during this work.