Compositional message sequence charts

Elsa L. Gunter, Anca Muscholl, Doron A. Peled

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

50 Scopus citations

Abstract

Message sequence charts (MSCs) is a standard notation for describing the interaction between communicating objects. It is popular among the designers of communication protocols. MSCs enjoy both a visual and a textual representation. High level MSCs (HMSCs) allow specifying infinite scenarios and different choices. Specifically, an HMSC consists of a graph, where each node is a finite MSC with matched send and receive events, and vice versa. In this paper we demonstrate a weakness of HMSCs, which disallows one to model certain interactions. We will show, by means of an example, that some simple finite state and simple communication protocol cannot be represented using HMSCs. We then propose an extension to the MSC standard, which allows HMSC nodes to include unmatched messages. The corresponding graph notation will be called HCMSC, which stands for High level Compositional Message Sequence Charts. With the extended framework, we provide an algorithm for automatically constructing an MSC representation for finite state asynchronous message passing protocols.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems - 7th Int. Conf., TACAS 2001, Held as Part of the Joint European Conf. on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2001, Proc.
EditorsTiziana Margaria, Wang Yi
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages496-511
Number of pages16
ISBN (Print)3540418652, 9783540418658
DOIs
StatePublished - 2001
Externally publishedYes
Event7th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2001, Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2001 - Genova, Italy
Duration: 2 Apr 20016 Apr 2001

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume2031 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference7th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2001, Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2001
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityGenova
Period2/04/016/04/01

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