TY - JOUR
T1 - Compositional message sequence charts
AU - Gunter, Elsa L.
AU - Muscholl, Anca
AU - Peled, Doron
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - A message sequence chart (MSC) 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 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.
AB - A message sequence chart (MSC) 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 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.
KW - Finite-state communication protocols
KW - Message sequence charts
KW - Partial-order methods
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84896693456&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10009-002-0085-2
DO - 10.1007/s10009-002-0085-2
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AN - SCOPUS:84896693456
SN - 1433-2779
VL - 5
SP - 78
EP - 89
JO - International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer
JF - International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer
IS - 1
ER -