ATL (ATLAS Transformation Language) is a model transformation language and toolkit developed and maintained by OBEO and AtlanMod. It was initiated by the AtlanMod team (previously called ATLAS Group). In the field of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), ATL provides ways to produce a set of target models from a set of source models. Released under the terms of the

Eclipse Public License The Eclipse Public License (EPL) is a free and open source software license most notably used for the Eclipse IDE and other projects by the Eclipse Foundation. It replaces the Common Public License (CPL) and removes certain terms relating to ...

, ATL is an M2M (Eclipse) component, inside of the Eclipse Modeling Project (EMP).

Overview

ATL is a model transformation language (MTL) developed by OBEO and INRIA to answer the QVT Request For Proposal. QVT is an

Object Management Group The Object Management Group (OMG) is a computer industry standards consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a range of technologies. Business activities The goal of the OMG was a common portable and interoperab ...

standard for performing model transformations. It can be used to do syntactic or semantic translation. ATL is built on top of a model transformation

Virtual Machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized har ...

. ATL is the ATLAS INRIA & LINA research group answer to the OMG MOF/QVT RFP. It is a model transformation language specified both as a metamodel and as a textual concrete syntax. It is a hybrid of declarative and imperative. The preferred style of transformation writing is declarative, which means simple mappings can be expressed simply. However, imperative constructs are provided so that some mappings too complex to be declaratively handled can still be specified. An ATL transformation program is composed of rules that define how source model elements are matched and navigated to create and initialize the elements of the target models.

Architecture

A model-transformation-oriented virtual machine has been defined and implemented to provide execution support for ATL while maintaining a certain level of flexibility. As a matter of fact, ATL becomes executable simply because a specific transformation from its metamodel to the virtual machine bytecode exists. Extending ATL is therefore mainly a matter of specifying the new language features execution semantics in terms of simple instructions: basic actions on models (elements creations and properties assignments).

Example

An ATL program (T1.atl here) will take model Ma.xmi as input and will produce model Mb.xmi as output. Both models may be expressed in the OMG XMI standard. The model Ma conforms to metamodel MMa.km3. Model Mb conforms to metamodel MMb.km3. The

KM3 KM3 or Kernel Meta Meta Model is a neutral computer language to write metamodels and to define Domain Specific Languages. KM3 has been defined at INRIA and is available under the Eclipse platform. References ...

notation is a simple and neutral metamodel specification language. The ATL program itself (T1.atl here) is also a model, so it conforms to a metamodel (the ATL metamodel) not presented here. An ATL program is composed of a header, of a set of

side-effect In medicine, a side effect is an effect, whether therapeutic or adverse, that is secondary to the one intended; although the term is predominantly employed to describe adverse effects, it can also apply to beneficial, but unintended, consequence ...

free functions called helpers and of a set of rules.

Implementations

There is an associated ATL Development Toolkit plugin available in open source from the ATL

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...

Modeling Project (EMP) that implements the ATL transformation language which is inspired by the MOF Query/View/Transformation language QVT. A large library of transformations is available. MOF QVT is a

Domain Specific Language A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...

for Model Transformation. It supports models conforming to Ecore, EMOF,

(a specific

for metamodel specification), etc. ATL is also running on MDR/ NetBeans.

References

*''The MDA Manifesto'
available from the MDA Journal
*''Model Driven Architecture: Applying MDA to Enterprise Computing'',

David S. Frankel David S. Frankel (born 1950) is an American Information Technology expert and consultant, known for his work on model-driven engineering and semantic information modeling. Biography Frankel obtained his BS in Mathematics from the University of ...

, John Wiley & Sons,
book
*''On the Architectural Alignment of ATL and QVT.

Frederic Jouault Frederic may refer to: Places United States * Frederic, Wisconsin, a village in Polk County * Frederic Township, Michigan, a township in Crawford County ** Frederic, Michigan, an unincorporated community Other uses * Frederic (band), a Japanese r ...

Ivan Kurtev Ivan () is a Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek name (English: John) from Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Slavic countries. The earliest person known to bear the name was Bulgari ...

in: Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 06), Model Transformation Track, Dijon, Bourgogne, France, (April 2006)
pdf paper

External links

* {{Official website Cross-platform software Free UML tools Java platform software Systems engineering Unified Modeling Language

Overview

Architecture

Example

Implementations

See also

References

Further reading

Articles

ATL Atlas model transformation language

UMT UML model transformation tool

Related model-driven development approaches

External links