• Domain-specific version control system: DSMCompare • Domain-specific model merging • Curated labeled dataset for model merging • Comparative evaluation with EMFCompare and Git • User study validating DSMCompare Software developers often collaborate by contributing to different branches in a version control system. However, merging the changes from the different branches often leads to conflicts, and resolving these conflicts is a tedious task. This challenge is exacerbated when the software to merge are domain-specific models, since they follow a graph-like structure rather than linear text. DSMCompare is a tool for comparing domain-specific models, detecting differences, and visualizing conflicts using the concrete syntax of the domain-specific language. In this paper, we enhance DSMCompare with conflict resolution capabilities to reduce the effort of merging model versions. Our evaluation demonstrates that DSMCompare is effective in achieving highly accurate automatic conflict resolution with minimal manual intervention. A user study further validates the tool, revealing a significant decrease in resolution time coupled with higher accuracy and user satisfaction.

Like any other software artifact, models evolve and need to be versioned. In the last few years, dedicated support for model versioning has been proposed to improve the default text-based versioning that version control systems offer. However, there is still the need to comprehend model differences in terms of the semantics of the modeling language. For this purpose, we propose a comprehensive approach that considers both abstract and concrete syntax, to express model differences in terms of the domain-specific language (DSL) used and define domain-specific semantics for specific difference patterns. The approach is based on the automatic extension of the DSL to enable the representation of changes, on the definition of rules to capture recurrent domain-specific difference patterns, and on the automatic adaptation of the graphical concrete syntax to visualize the differences. We present a prototype tool support and discuss its application on versioned models created by third parties.