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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jason Steggles
SDL (Specification and Description Language) is a standard industrial formal description technique for real--time distributed systems which is based on communicating finite state machines. Despite its wide spread use and industrial importance SDL lacks at present a complete and integrated formal semantics. In this paper we begin to develop such a formal semantics for SDL using a new algebraic formalism called Timed Rewriting Logic (TRL). TRL is a specification formalism which extends standard algebraic specification techniques by allowing the dynamic behaviour of systems to be axiomatised using term rewriting rules. The rewrite rules can be labelled with time constraints which provide a means of reasoning about time elapse in real--time systems. The formal semantics we develop captures in an intuitive way the hierarchical structure of SDL specifications and integrates within one formalism the static and dynamic aspects of an SDL system. It also provides a natural basis for analysing, verifying, testing and composing SDL systems. We demonstrate the approach we develop by considering modelling an SDL specification for the so called bump game.
Author(s): Steggles LJ, Kosiuczenko P
Publication type: Report
Publication status: Published
Series Title: Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series
Year: 1998
Pages: 20
Print publication date: 01/01/1998
Source Publication Date: 1998
Report Number: 637
Institution: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
URL: http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/trs/papers/637.pdf
