Using Human-Usable Textual Notation (HUTN) for T2M Transformation

The team responsible for the Epsilon Eclipse GMT component has been investigating the appropriateness of using the Human-Usable Textual Notation (HUTN) as a means for providing a generic concrete syntax for instances of Ecore metamodels. A number of solutions (xText, TCS) exist for performing T2M transformation, but these solutions require the definition a specific concrete syntax for each metamodel.

They have constructed tooling that implements many of the core features of the HUTN specification, and provided integration with the Eclipse Modelling Framework through development tools for the Eclipse platform. In order to perform validation upon the input text and the transformation to the target model, the tooling extensively utilises model-management languages provided by Epsilon.

Going forward, the Epsilon team is concentrating on ensuring their implementation is well-aligned with the HUTN specification, and investigating the feasibility of using HUTN during the testing of model management activities. This flash screencast demonstrates some of the capabilities of their tooling.