Rule-Based Simplification of OCL Constraints

Paper in proceeding, 2004

To help designers in writing OCL constraints, we have to construct systems that can generate some of these constraints. This might be done by instantiating templates, by combining prefabricated parts, or by more general computation. Such generated specifications will often contain redundancies that reduce their readability. In this paper, we explore the possibilities of simplifying OCL formulae through the repeated application of simple rules. We discuss the different kinds of rules that are needed, and we describe a prototypical implementation of the approach.