Clafer: Lightweight Modeling Language

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Clafer syntax highlighter for VIM

by Michał Antkiewicz

Andrzej Wąsowski has contributed an integration of Clafer into VIM featuring

syntax highlighting for structural and behavioral Clafer, including marking simple errors
indentation based folding for collapsing parts of the model (experimental)

To install, follow the instructions in the README.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Which new features would you like to see in Clafer?

by Michał Antkiewicz

We are thinking of implementing a few new features for Clafer. We opened a poll on the right, above the "Blog Archive". Please vote.

Here's a brief explanation of the features:

Automotive Electronic/Electric Architecture Modeling, Design Exploration and Optimization using Clafer

MMath thesis by Alexandr Murashkin

Automotive Electronic/Electric Architecture Modeling, Design Exploration and Optimization using Clafer

Abstract

Tutorial on Domain Modeling using Clafer

by Michał Antkiewicz

On Aug 25, 2014, as part of the Domain-Specific Modeling Theory and Practice 2014 Summer School, Michał Antkiewicz presented a 6-hour hands-on tutorial on Domain Modeling using Clafer. This year, the school had a common domain: "Traffic Lights", and it was first modeled and analyzed using Clafer.

The tutorial is in the form of the Clafer Wiki 'Traffic Lights' Domain Model Example. It contains four parts:

Part 0: Introduction to Domain Engineering (slides)
Part I: Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis and Modeling
Part II: Domain Concept Modeling
Part III: Application Configuration

Thursday, July 24, 2014

How to run Gitit from a Cabal sandbox?

by Michał Antkiewicz

Some Haskell projects, such as Gitit, dynamically load Haskell modules which implement plugins. ClaferWiki is one such a plugin for Gitit. To have Gitit load the ClaferWiki plugin, one must specify the following in the gitit.cnf file

plugins: Network.Gitit.Plugin.ClaferWiki

Gitit will then search for the module ClaferWiki in the user and global package registries. However, when the plugin is installed in a Cabal sandbox, it will not be found.

UPDATE (Feb 10, 2015): the claferwiki.sh script now provides an option --sandbox.

Clafer Tools 0.3.6.1 Released

by Michał Antkiewicz

We are moving to a staged release model. First, Haskell-based tools, including the compiler, IG, and the wiki, followed by backends Choco3-based and Z3-based, finally followed by the web tools. This will allow us to make more frequent releases of the core components on which all others depend.

The binaries for Win, Linux, and Mac can be downloaded from Clafer Tools - Binary Distributions. There's also a "portable" distribution for Win which includes preconfigured Sublime Text 2.

For feature modeling, see Guidelines for Feature Modeling using Clafer.

Clafer Tools 0.3.6.1 is a simultaneous release of the Clafer

compiler
wiki (go to the demo instance: Clafer Model Wiki)
Alloy-based instance generator
Choco3-based instance generator and multi-objective optimizer backend
Choco3-based solver frontend
Z3-based instance generator and multi-objective optimizer backend and frontend
Clafer Integrated Development Environment (go to the demo instance: ClaferIDE)
Clafer Configurator (go to the demo instance: ClaferConfigurator)
Clafer Multi-Objective Optimization Visualizer and Exporer (go to the demo instance: ClaferMooVisualizer)

The 0.3.6.1 release is mostly focused on

the Choco3-based and Z3-based backends,
significant update of the web-based tools user interface (using D3 framework + usability improvements)
compiler fixes.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Clafer Tools 0.3.5 Released

by Michał Antkiewicz

Clafer Tools 0.3.5.20-01-2014 is a simultaneous release of the Clafer

projects.

Models expressed in Clafer can be translated either to Alloy and used for instance generation and multi-objective optimization or to Choco3 and used for instance generation and single-objective optimization.

The binary distributions of all tools are available for download.
The following are links to public live demo installations of

The 0.3.5 release is mostly focused on adding the Choco3-based backends and the three web-based tools: the new tool-ClaferIDE, and improvements of the ClaferMooVisualizer and ClaferConfigurator. In this release, the three web projects, which were forks of each other, were refactored into a product-line based on an integrated platform, the Clafer Tools UI Common Platform.
We have also created two new wiki resources:

Guidelines for Feature Modeling using Clafer
An interactive assignment designed to introduce the concepts of variability management, multi-objective optimization, and computational decision-making in product line engineering.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Example-Driven Modeling Using Clafer paper & presentation

by Michał Antkiewicz

UPDATE (Jan 16, 2014): Our paper "Effects of Using Examples on Structural Model Comprehension" has been accepted for publication at ICSE'14.

In the paper, we present a controlled experiment for the empirical evaluation of Example-Driven Modeling (EDM) for model comprehension and domain knowledge transfer. The results show a significant positive impact of using examples on the performance of experiment participants.

On Sep. 29, at the Model-Driven Engineering by Example workshop at the MODELS'13 conference we presented a paper Example-Driven Modeling Using Clafer. The paper shows a scenario in which Alice, an SME, and Bob, a BA, are communicating using examples, inferring abstractions, deriving new examples, and validating the abstractions.

The paper showcases the importance of redefinition, partial typing, and partial instantiation for the presented vision of performing example-driven modeling. The slides of the presentation are available at the publication's page.

Support for redefinition is partially implemented in Clafer 0.4.0. A preview release is available from binary distributions.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Clafer Tools 0.3.4 Released

by Michał Antkiewicz

Download binaries

SPLC'13 papers:
Clafer Tools for Product Line Engineering,
Visualization and Exploration of Optimal Variants in Product Line Engineering.

Clafer Tools 0.3.4 is a simultaneous release of the Clafer

projects.
The binary distributions of all tools are available for download.

The following are links to public live demo installations of

The 0.3.4 release is mostly focused on ClaferMooVisualizer and ClaferConfigurator.

Clafer Configurator (commits)

improved help pages
added check for dependencies

ClaferMoo Visualizer (commits)

improved help pages
added check for dependencies
added cancel button
improved error reporting
added example models selector and linked to the wiki
improved session management and server side process management

Detailed changelogs for release 0.3.4
Clafer new features and bug fixes
ClaferIG new features and bug fixes
ClaferConfigurator new features and bug fixes
ClaferWiki new features and bug fixes
ClaferMOO new features and bug fixes
ClaferMOOVisualizer new features and bug fixes

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Clafer Tools 0.3.3 Released

by Michał Antkiewicz

Download binaries for Clafer and ClaferIG

SPLC'13 papers:
Clafer Tools for Product Line Engineering,
Visualization and Exploration of Optimal Variants in Product Line Engineering.

Clafer Tools 0.3.3 is a simultaneous release of the Clafer

projects.The binary distributions of the compiler and instance generator are available for download. The other tools are either in Python or JavaScript and they do not require binary builds - they can be installed by downloading from the source code repositories.
The following are links to public live demo installations of

The live demos are still running 0.3.2 but will be upgraded asap. The 0.3.3 release is massive in size. Overall, it contains many new features, bug fixes, and big performance improvements.

Noteworthy Changes
Clafer (commits)

fixed if-then-else type resolution
improved error reporting for lexer, layout resolver, parser, and compiler errors
fixed default cardinality of grouped clafers
fixed 'sum' to use sum quantifier in Alloy
added attributed feature models check
added a powerful scope computation strategy based on linear programming
added scope computation strategy options: none, simple, full
fixed HTML rendering errors
included the Ecore2Clafer translator
fixed typing for unions
added a parameter to skip code generation for goals/objectives

ClaferIG (commits)

added JSON output of instance data
added automatic adjustment of bitwidth for a model
fixed displaying of strings-string literals from the models are properly displayed
improved the 'claferModel' command which now shows the model together with scopes and UnSAT core markers
IG now does not crach for models with goals
some compiler options can now be passed directly to IG

ClaferWiki (commits)

fixed download links - downloaded files now have page names
the wiki plugins are now a proper cabal package
improved situation with race conditions

Clafer Configurator (commits)

added help system - welcome help and pages for each window
the configurator no longer crashes for models with goals
added attributed feature model check, if not, displays an error
constraints representing current filters (feature selections and eliminations) can be copy pasted from the view Constraints.