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Interaction Interfaces -- Towards a scientific foundation of a methodological usage of Message Sequence Charts
Conference Paper
| Author: | |
| Conference: | Formal Engineering Methods (ICFEM'98) |
| Editor: | J. Staples, M. G. Hinchey, Shaoying Liu Hinchey, Shaoying Liu |
| Pages: | 2 - 15 |
| Publisher: | IEEE Computer Society |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Abstract: | We introduce the formal notion of an {em interaction interface}. Its purpose is to specify formally the interaction between two or more components that co-operate as subsystems of a distributed system. We suggest the use of interaction interfaces for the description not of the behaviour of a single component in isolation but of the interface, the co-operation, between two or more components that are interacting within a distributed system. Typical examples are the interaction between an embedded system and its environment or the interaction between a sender and a receiver in a communication protocol. An interaction interface can be formally described by predicates characterising sets of interaction histories. We understand the specification of interaction histories as a typical step in system development that prepares the decomposition of a system into interacting subcomponents. After fixing the distribution structure of the system, an interaction interface is worked out that describes how the introduced subcomponents interact. In a successive development step we systematically derive the individual component specifications from the interface description. We show how such an interaction interface can be decomposed systematically into component specifications. |
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