OCL for the Specification of Model Transformation Contracts

A major challenge of the OMG Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) initiative is to be able to define and execute transformations of models. Such transformations may be defined in several ways and with various motivations. Our motivation is to specify model transformations independently of any transformation technology. To achieve this goal, we propose to define transformation contracts. We argue that model transformation contracts are an essential basis for the MDA, they can be used for specification, validation and test of transformations. This paper focuses on the specification of model transformation contracts. We investigate the way to define them using standard UML and OCL features. In addition to presenting the approach and some experimental results, this paper discusses the relevance and limits of standard OCL to define transformation contracts.