Rule based approach for ensuring consistency in different UML models

Abstract

Unified Modeling Language (UML) presents us a collection of diagrams to model different aspects of a system, like behavior, structure, functionality, etc. Refinement of models and the evolving nature of software, may lead to inconsistencies between different diagrams of the same model. Inconsistencies in the IS model specification might result in the development of an incoherent and conflicting system. Current tools lack of support for maintaining the consistency between diagrams. This paper shows that the proposed methods are insufficient for consistency checking in UML models. Therefore, authors of this paper propose a rule based method for consistency checking in UML models. The proposed method is implemented as a software prototype for MagicDraw UML tool.