Generation of multi-formalism state-space analysis tools

Abstract

As software evolves from early architectural sketches to final code, a variety of representations are appropriate. Moreover, at most points in development, different portions of a software system are at different stages in development, and consequently in different representations. State-space analysis techniques (reachability analysis, model checking, simulation, etc.) have been developed for several representations of concurrent systems, but each tool or technique has typically been targeted to a single design or program notation.We describe an approach to constructing space analysis tools using a core set of basic representations and components. Such a tool generation approach differs from translation to a common formalism. We need not map every supported design formalism to a single internal form that completely captures the original semantics; rather, a shared "inframodel" represents only the essential information for interpretation by tool components that can be customized to reflect the semantics of each formalism. This results in more natural and compact internal representations, and more efficient analysis, than a purely translational approach.We illustrate the approach by applying the prototype tool to a small example problem, coordination of access to a coffee machine. The coffee machine is controlled by an Ada program, and the protocol of human users is modeled with Petri nets. Nets and process graph models are represented in the common internal form, and their composite behavior is analyzed by the prototype tool.