A K-based language for Design Patterns

Today, Design Patterns play a cornerstone role in the development of complex software applications. Although several notations have been proposed to specify them, the kind of formal and tool support they provide is quite limited. In this paper we explore the use of Maude as a formal notation for describing design patterns and reasoning about them. The key to the defined approach is to use a meta model notation, according to MDA approach, and a Maude semantic basis (using the K-framework), for specifying both structural and dynamic aspects of design patterns. In particular, we show how we exploit our combined models approach for reasoning on design pattern inherent operations, such as composition, instantiation, etc.