Semantics of Architectural Specifications in CASL (bibtex)

by Lutz Schröder, Till Mossakowski, Piotr Hoffman, Bartek Klin and Andrzej Tarlecki

Abstract:

We present a semantics for architectural specifications in CASL, including an extended static analysis compatible with model-theoretic requirements. The main obstacle here is the lack of amalgamation for CASL models. To circumvent this problem, we extend the CASL logic by introducing enriched signatures, where subsort embeddings form a category rather than just a preorder. The extended model functor has amalgamation, which makes it possible to express the amalgamability conditions in the semantic rules in static terms. Using these concepts, we develop the semantics at various levels in an institution-independent fashion. Concretizing to the CASL institution, we discuss a calculus for discharging the static amalgamation conditions. These are in general undecidable, but can be dealt with by approximative algorithms in all practically relevant cases.

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Reference:

Lutz Schröder, Till Mossakowski, Piotr Hoffman, Bartek Klin and Andrzej Tarlecki: Semantics of Architectural Specifications in CASL, In Heinrich Hußmann, ed.: Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2029, pp. 253–268, Springer; Berlin; http://www.springer.de, 2001. [preprint]

Bibtex Entry:

@InProceedings{SchroederEtal01,
  author = {Lutz Schr{\"o}der and Till Mossakowski and Piotr Hoffman and Bartek Klin and Andrzej Tarlecki},
  title = {Semantics of Architectural Specifications in {CASL}},
  year = {2001},
  editor = {Heinrich Hu&szlig;mann},
  booktitle = {Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering},
  publisher = {Springer; Berlin; http://www.springer.de},
  series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  volume = {2029},
  pages = {253--268},
  keywords = {Amalgamation CASL architectural specification diagram semantics},
  url = {http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&issn=0302-9743&volume=2029&spage=253},
  comment = { <a href = "http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~schroeder/papers/archsem.pdf"> [preprint] </a>},
  psurl = {http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~schroeder/papers/archsem.ps},
  abstract = {We present a semantics for architectural specifications in CASL,
including an extended static analysis compatible with model-theoretic requirements. The main obstacle here is the lack of amalgamation for CASL models. To circumvent this problem, we extend the CASL logic by introducing enriched signatures, where subsort embeddings form a category rather than just a preorder. The extended model functor has amalgamation, which makes it possible to express the amalgamability conditions in the semantic rules in static terms. Using these concepts, we develop the semantics at various levels in an institution-independent fashion. Concretizing to the CASL institution, we discuss a calculus for discharging the static amalgamation conditions. These are in general undecidable, but can be dealt with by approximative algorithms in all practically relevant cases.
},
}