Constraint Language

Definition

Constraint Language

a language for documenting rules (constraints) within models

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, constraint languages are part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Language
• Subclasses: None
• Example Instances:
  • Object Constraint Language (OCL), which constrains and formalizes the semantics of the Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of a constraint language are to:

• Constrain the semantics of models produced using a modeling language.
• Thereby allow the production of more rigorous models.

Guidelines

• Constraint languages are especially useful when automatically generating software from models.