Model Differences for Supporting Model Co-evolution

Abstract—Software development is witnessing the increasing need of version management techniques for supporting the evolution of model-based artefacts. In this respect, meta-models can be considered one of the basic concepts of Model-Driven Engineering and are expected to evolve during their life-cycle. As a consequence, models conforming to changed meta-models have to be updated for preserving their well-formedness. This work proposes an approach to raise the level of ab-straction of meta-model adaptations by representing them as difference models conforming to a difference meta-model. This way, manipulations can be clearly distinguished from unchanged parts and semi-automated countermeasures can be taken in order to co-adapt the corresponding models. I