A survey of model transformation design patterns in practice

Model transformation design patterns have been proposed by a number of researchers, but their usage appears to be sporadic and sometimes patterns are applied without recognition of the pattern. In this paper we provide a systematic literature review of transformation design pattern applications. We evaluate how widely patterns have been used, and how their use differs in different transformation languages and for different categories of transformation. We identify what benefits appear to arise from the use of patterns, and consider how the application of patterns can be improved. The paper also identifies several new patterns which have not previously been catalogued.