An Approach to Testing Java']Java Implementation against Its UML Class Model

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) aims to expedite the software development process by providing support for transforming models to running systems. Many modeling tools provide forward engineering features that automatically translate a model into a skeletal program that developers must complete. Inconsistencies between a design model and its implementation can result as a consequence of manually-added code. Manually checking that an implementation conforms to the model is a daunting task. Thus, there is a need for MDE tools that developers can use to check whether an implementation conforms to a model, especially when generated code is manually modified. This paper presents an approach for testing that an implementation satisfies the constraints specified in its design model. We also describe a prototypical tool that supports the approach, and we describe how its application to two Eclipse UML2 projects uncovered errors.