Target oriented relational model finding

Abstract

Model finders are becoming useful in many software engineering problems. Kodkod is one of the most popular, due to its support for relational logic (a combination of first order logic with relational algebra operators and transitive closure), allowing a simpler specification of constraints, and support for partial instances, allowing the specification of a priori (exact, but potentially partial) knowledge about a problem's solution. However, in some software engineering problems, such as model repair or bidirectional model transformation, knowledge about the solution is not exact, but instead there is a known target that the solution should approximate. In this paper we extend Kodkod's partial instances to allow the specification of such targets, and show how its model finding procedure can be adapted to support them (using both PMax-SAT solvers or SAT solvers with cardinality constraints). Two case studies are also presented, including a careful performance evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the proposed extension.