Abstract:
Reverse inheritance is a potential class reusing mechanism having capabilities of creating abstact
supertypes, factoring features from classes, redefining features, adapting features, adding an abstraction
layer in a class hierarchy. This class relationship was not defined fully in the literature
nor implemented in a programming language. To show that reverse inheritance is a feasible class
relationship that helps class reusability, we defined its semantics for Eiffel by informal rules and
we built a proof of a concept prototype. The semantics of reverse inheritance deals with feature
signature exheritance, type exheritance, assertion exheritance, implementation exheritance, feature
adaptations, feature clauses, genericity. The extended Eiffel language is modeled using Prolog
facts, factbases corresponding to object-oriented systems. The semantics of the reverse inheritance
concept is expressed through model transformations applied to the factbase. The factbase model
is transformed using conditional transformations, which can detect transformation dependencies
or can find a possible order for the transformation execution. Finally, the resulted model facts
are translated automatically into pure Eiffel compilable code, in order to build the executable
object-oriented system.
