Abstract—UML modelling language is widely adopted in software analysis and design. UML diagrams are divided into different perspectives on modelling a problem domain. Preserving the coevolution among these diagrams is very crucial so that they can be updated continuously to reflect software changes. Decades of research efforts have produced a wide spectrum of approaches in checking the coevolution among UML diagrams. These approaches can be classified into direct, transformational, formal semantics, or knowledge representation approaches. Formal methods such as Coloured Petri Nets (CPN) are widely used in detecting and handling the coevolution between artifacts. Although ample progress has been made, there still remains much work to be done in further improving the effectiveness and the accuracy of the state-of-the-art coevolution techniques in managing changes in UML diagrams. In this research, a survey about the approaches in maintaining the coevolution among UML diagrams is provided. This research proposed set of coevolution and change effect relations on UML diagrams and diagrams elements. Additionally, currently challenges and issues to detect and resolve the UML diagrams coevolution and inconsistencies are discussed.

Index Terms—Coevolution, change impact, consistency, UML.

Bassam Atieh Rajabi and Sai Peck Lee are with Department of Software Engineering, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Cite:Bassam Atieh Rajabi, Sai Peck Lee, "Current Issues in UML Diagrams Coevolution and Consistency Techniques and Approaches," International Journal of Computer and Electrical Engineering vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 158-173, 2018.