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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jonathan Burton, Professor Maciej KoutnyORCiD
We present here an implementation relation intended to formalise the notion that a system built of communicating processes is an acceptable implementation of another base, or target, system in the event that the two systems have different interfaces. Such a treatment has clear applicability in the software development process, where (the interface of) an implementation component may be expressed at a different level of abstraction to (the interface of) the relevant specification component. We extend the results of our previous work and replace implementation relations previously presented by a single, improved scheme. We also remove all the restrictions previously placed upon target processes. Two basic kinds of results are obtained: realisability and compositionality. The latter means that a target composed of several connected systems may be implemented by connecting their respective implementations. The former means that, if target and implementation have the same interface, then the implementation relation they should satisfy collapses into the standard implementation pre-order. We also show how to represent processes and necessary formal structures in a manner amenable to computer implementation, and detail a graph-theoretic restatement of the conditions defining the implementation relation, whence we derive algorithms for its automatic verification.
Author(s): Burton J, Koutny M, Pappalardo G
Publication type: Report
Publication status: Published
Series Title: Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series
Year: 2002
Pages: 36
Report Number: 757
Institution: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
