The Diagramed Model Query Language 2.0: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation

Delfmann Patrick, Riehle Dennis M, Höhenberger Steffen, Corea Carl, Drodt Christoph

Abstract

The Diagramed Model Query Language (DMQL) is a structural query language that operates on process models and related kinds of models, e.g., data models. In this article, we explain how DMQL works and report on DMQL's research process, which includes intermediate developments. The idea of a new model query language came from observations in industry projects, where it was necessary to deal with a variety of modeling languages, complex query requirements and the need for pinpointing the query results. Thus, we developed the Generic Model Query Language (GMQL) tailored to deal with models of arbitrary modeling languages and queries that express model graph structures of any complexity. GMQL queries are formulas and professionals expressed the need to specify queries more conveniently. Therefore, the next development step was DMQL, which comes with functionality similar to GMQL, but allows to specify queries graphically. In this article, we describe both query languages, their syntax, semantics, implementation and evaluation, and come up with a new version of DMQL, which includes new functionality. Finally, we relate GMQL and DMQL to the Process Querying Framework.