The Research Of Aspect-oriented Modeling Tool Based On MDA

With the increase in the scale of the software development and the update ofsoftware technology，the defects of traditional software development process has beenexposed. The defects are mainly as follows：(1)the development process is inefficient,(2)the program’s portability is poor,(3) some inconsistencies, which make it difficult tomaintain or update the system, exist in the design documents and software body, etc. Inthis context, MDA, making the model as the center of the development, was proposed toinstead of the traditional development idea which took code as the core. In the way ofMDA, the design and technology platform can be separated through the establishedplatform-independent model (PIM), meanwhile the conversion from PIM to platformspecific model (PSM) and from PSM to code can be achieved through the setappropriate conversion rules which is built by developer. Thus, MDA makes thesoftware development as an automated process, while improving the developmentefficiency, increasing portability of the system and ensuring consistency between thedocument and software.In the developing, the core business and non-core business are called core concernsand crosscutting concerns, and the two concerns are separated, named as the ideology ofaspect objected(AO) which effectively avoids the code confusion between the corebusiness and crosscutting function, makes the same kind of non-functional businessmodular, avoids the dispersion in the code and increases the reusability of the code.To take the advantages of both AO and MDA effectively, and to create an efficient,high-quality development model, the thought of AO would be introduced into MDA andthe aspect-oriented software development methods and MDA would be combinedsuggested by this paper. There are a few of studies about the combination of AOP andMDA in which exist some problems as follows:(1)there’s no flexibility modeling AOP’smodel by using UML extensions,(2) Most of studies made it difficult restrain model’sconsistency using traditional development pattern for modeling software development,and without defining meta-model.(3) There is no high versatility for using differenttechnologies and standards in modeling work.(4) Without the support of meta-model, itis difficult for the automation of MDA development to work out.In order to solve the problems mentioned above, AOP and MDA is combined, amore complete and standardized meta-model system is established for aspect-oriented modeling according to the UML standard, suggested by this paper. Supported bymeta-model, using the MDA development process design and implement, aaspect-oriented modeling tool based on MDA and serving the MDA is achieved whichguarantees the later MDA automation development and the weaving of AOP. The entirestudy is built on the MDA basic theory, the meta-modeling techniques and the graphicalmodel editor complete. This study in this article focuses on the research of modelingtools based on MDA, and the formation/export stage of PIM model. The study hasmainly three aspects included: firstly, study the MDA basic theory and elementmodeling technology and the necessary elements for the AOP development will beextracted; secondly, the aspect-oriented model could be refined and meta-model couldbe modeled with the MOF meta-modeling techniques; finally, based on the GMFtechnology, the graphical model, tools models and mapping model, etc. could bedesigned. Thus the visual MDA-based aspect-oriented modeling tool, which alsosupports the export of proposed model in the form of generic XML documents, wasdesigned and achieved. Using the RCP technology, the developed modeling tool canmake executable program generated which could run independently from the originalsoftware development platform and in any environment equipped with Java VirtualMachine.Through the analysis, study, design, implementation of the MDA-basedaspect-oriented modeling tool, this article provides a new idea of combining theaspects-oriented software development process and MDA framework. The validationfrom the modeling and analysis of the test case with this tool further illustrate the ideaand method of the research paper is feasible, effective and practical.