Communicating X-machines: from theory to practice

Authors:
Petros Kefalas;George Eleftherakis;Evangelos Kehris
Affiliations:
Computer Science Department, City Liberal Studies, Affiliated College of the University of Sheffield, Thessaloniki, Greece;Computer Science Department, City Liberal Studies, Affiliated College of the University of Sheffield, Thessaloniki, Greece;Computer Science Department, City Liberal Studies, Affiliated College of the University of Sheffield, Thessaloniki, Greece
Venue:
PCI'01 Proceedings of the 8th Panhellenic conference on Informatics
Year:
2001

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Abstract

Formal modeling of complex systems is a non-trivial task, especially if a formal method does not facilitate separate development of the components of a system.Th is paper describes a methodology of building communicating X-machines from existing stand-alone X-machine models and presents the theory that drives this methodology. An X-machine is a formal method that resembles a finite state machine but can model non-trivial data structures.T his is accomplished by incorporating a typed memory tuple into the model as well as transitions labeled with functions that operate on inputs and memory values. A set of X-machines can exchange messages with each other, thus building a communicating system model. Ho wever, existing communicating X-machines theories imply that the components of a communicating system should be built from scratch. We suggest that modeling of complex systems can be split into two separate and distinct activities: (a) the modeling of standalone X-machine components and (b) the description of the communication between these components.Th is approach is based on a different view of the theory of communicating X-machines and it leads towards disciplined, practical, and modular development.T he proposed methodology is accompanied by an example, which demonstrates the use of communicating X-machines towards the modeling of large-scale systems.