Extending a model-based IDE : Implementing multi-user collaboration

• Main Authors: Johannesson, Daniel, Doane, Christopher
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för datavetenskap 2017
• Subjects: EMFStore; Computer Sciences; Datavetenskap (datalogi); Arctic
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-140018

This report proposes an implementation of multi-user support to an existing model-based IDE called Arctic Studio which is created and maintained by ARCCORE AB. Arctic Studio is a single-user embedded software development environment for developers utilizing the AUTOSAR standard. It is based on the Eclipse IDE and the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF). The implementation takes the form of an Eclipse plugin using EMFStore. Users face a challenge to maintain consistency between several versions of a model instance. This is currently solved with the use of version control systems like GIT or SVN or by using tools such as EMF Compare to manually merge models. These traditional version control systems are not well-suited for the structure of model files used in Arctic Studio. By having model-supported version control, developers can synchronize changes in model representation and easily perform merges. To select an appropriate solution, the state of the art in version control techniques for model artifacts was presented. In this case, model artifacts are xml files that define model instances. The version control system called EMFStore was selected as it can be integrated into the Arctic Studio product. The company ARCCORE also expressed a preference for EMFStore over other solutions and named that the ability to integrate the solution with Arctic Studio was desirable. Different methods for integrating EMFStore in Arctic Studio were explored and a prototype was constructed to test the viability of using EMFStore for AUTOSAR models. Limitations of the EMFStore implementation were documented and some of them addressed in the prototype implementation. This study concludes that EMFStore can, with some integration modifications, be setup to handle version control of AUTOSAR EMF model instances in Arctic Studio