An Efficient of Finding and Tracking Inconsistencies in Software Design Models

Software models typically contain many inconsistencies and consistency checkers help engineers find them. Even if engineers are willing to tolerate inconsistencies, they are better off knowing about their existence to avoid follow on errors and unnecessary rework. However, current approaches do not detect or track inconsistencies fast enough. This paper presents an automated approach for detecting and tracking inconsistencies in real time (while the model changes). Engineers only need to define consistency rules - in any language - and the authors' approach automatically identifies how model changes affect these consistency rules. It does this by observing the behavior of consistency rules to understand how they affect the model.