The use of the GXL approach for supporting visual language specification and interchanging

GXL (Graph Exchange Language) has been proposed to be a standard exchange format for graph-based tools. By using XML as notation, GXL provides a scaleable and versatile approach to facilitate interoperability of reengineering tools. In this paper we propose a methodology to generate visual programming environments, which use GXL as data exchange format for visual languages. The methodology is conceived to be supported by grammar-based tools for the automatic generation of visual languages. In particular, we illustrate how it can be effectively supported by the Visual Language Compiler-Compiler (VLCC) system. As a matter of fact, we apply the methodology to generate a visual environment for statecharts languages using VLCC. In the generated environment we can edit a statechart and obtain its translation into the GXL format.