Quick fix generation for DSMLs

Domain-specific modeling languages (DSML) proved to be an important asset in creating powerful design tools for domain experts.  Although these tools are capable of preserving the syntax-correctness of models even during free-hand editing, they often lack the ability of maintaining the non-syntactical language-specific constraints in models. Hence, there is a need for approaches which are capable of assisting DSML users to create consistent models. In this paper we describe an approach for generating quick fixes for DSMLs based on a set of domain-specific constraints and model manipulation operations. Our approach uses state-space exploration techniques to find sequences of operations which lead to less inconsistent models. The approach is illustrated on a case study using the BPMN DSML and it is evaluated by several experiments to show its feasibility and performance.