Retrofitting Type-safe Interfaces into Template-based Code Generators

Kai Adam, Arvid Butting, Oliver Kautz, Jerome Pfeiffer, Bernhard Rumpe, Andreas Wortmann

2018

Abstract

Model-driven development leverages transformations to produce general-purpose programming language artifacts. Model-to-text (M2T) transformations facilitate ad-hoc transformation development by requiring less preparation than model-to-model transformations. Employing template engines is common for M2T trans- formations. However, the M2T transformation artifacts (templates) rarely provide interfaces to support their black-box integration. Instead, composing templates requires in-depth expertise of their internals to identify and pass the required arguments. This complicates their reuse, and, hence, code generator development. Where switching to more expressive template engines is not feasible, conceiving templates as models can alleviate these challenges. We present a method to retrofit type-safe signatures into templates, generate typed interfaces from these, and show how this can be utilized to compose independently developed templates for more efficient code generator engineering.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Adam K., Butting A., Kautz O., Pfeiffer J., Rumpe B. and Wortmann A. (2018). Retrofitting Type-safe Interfaces into Template-based Code Generators.In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development - Volume 1: MODELSWARD, ISBN 978-989-758-283-7, pages 179-190. DOI: 10.5220/0006605001790190

in Bibtex Style

@conference{modelsward18,
author={Kai Adam and Arvid Butting and Oliver Kautz and Jerome Pfeiffer and Bernhard Rumpe and Andreas Wortmann},
title={Retrofitting Type-safe Interfaces into Template-based Code Generators},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development - Volume 1: MODELSWARD,},
year={2018},
pages={179-190},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0006605001790190},
isbn={978-989-758-283-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development - Volume 1: MODELSWARD,
TI - Retrofitting Type-safe Interfaces into Template-based Code Generators
SN - 978-989-758-283-7
AU - Adam K.
AU - Butting A.
AU - Kautz O.
AU - Pfeiffer J.
AU - Rumpe B.
AU - Wortmann A.
PY - 2018
SP - 179
EP - 190
DO - 10.5220/0006605001790190