Generating Database Migration for Evolving Web Applications

July 05, 2011

Acoda extends the WebDSL web programming language with support for database migration based on evolution of the data model of an application.

Sander D. Vermolen, Guido Wachsmuth, Eelco Visser. Generating Database Migration for Evolving Web Applications. In Ewen Denney, Ulrik Pagh Schultz, editors, Generative Programming and Component Engineering, 7th International Conference, GPCE 2011, Portland, OR, USA, October 22-23, 2011, Proceedings. ACM, 2011.

Abstract WebDSL is a domain-specific language for the implementation of dynamic web applications with a rich datamodel. It provides developers with object-oriented data modeling concepts but abstracts over implementation details for persisting application data in relational databases. When the underlying data model of an application evolves, persisted application data has to be migrated. While implementing migration at the database level breaks the abstractions provided by WebDSL, an implementation at the data model level requires to intermingle migration with application code. In this paper, we present a domain-specific language for the coupled evolution of data models and application data. It allows to specify data model evolution as a separate concern at the data model level and can be compiled to migration code at the database level. Its linguistic integration with WebDSL enables static checks for evolution validity and correctness.