Static validation of modelica models for language compliance and structural integrity

The increasing importance of the simulation of physical systems models demands enhanced support for developers. Models do not only increase in terms of quantity, but also complexity. Hence, libraries need to be created containing valid models for re-use. It is crucial for library developers to get immediate feedback about errors regarding the language specification. Moreover, users of libraries need to know immediately if existing components are misused. When using Modelica as the modeling language the models are validated at compilation time by recent development environments. This decreases the development speed as developers recognize errors in their models late and therefore need to recapitalize the design decisions made in order to maintain the intent of the code during error fixing. In this paper we present two implementations, i.e. Object Constraint Language (OCL) and Java, for Modelica code validation that can be triggered during model editing. Both variants are compared to each other regarding readability of constraints as well as execution performance. Therefore, rules are extracted from the Modelica language specification asserting that the models are correct. Furthermore, custom rules are defined restricting library models such that they can only be used in the intended way.