Moving from interface theories to assembly theories

We show how interface theories supporting pairwise component analysis can be extended in a generic way to a multi-component environment. This leads to the abstract framework of an assembly theory which captures notions of assembly refinement and communication-safety in assemblies of interacting comp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta informatica 2015-04, Vol.52 (2-3), p.235-268
Main Authors: Hennicker, Rolf, Knapp, Alexander
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Assembly
Automation
Communication
Computer Science
Computer Systems Organization and Communication Networks
Concrete construction
Construction
Control theory
Data Structures and Information Theory
Encapsulation
Information Systems and Communication Service
Interfaces
Logics and Meanings of Programs
Original Article
Preserves
Proving
Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems
Studies
Theory of Computation
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Summary:We show how interface theories supporting pairwise component analysis can be extended in a generic way to a multi-component environment. This leads to the abstract framework of an assembly theory which captures notions of assembly refinement and communication-safety in assemblies of interacting components. An assembly theory supports also encapsulation of assemblies into interfaces and hence hierarchical constructions. We propose general rules that should be satisfied by any concrete assembly theory, like compositional construction and refinement of communication-safe assemblies. We discuss general procedures how to construct an assembly theory on top of a given interface theory such that (some of) the laws of an assembly theory are automatically guaranteed by the properties of an underlying interface theory. As a proof of concept we consider two instances of our approach. The first one starts from the (optimistic) interface theory of interface automata proposed by de Alfaro and Henzinger, and the second one from the (pessimistic) interface theory of modal I/O-interfaces. In the latter case, we propose a new notion of modal assembly refinement which has all the required properties, in particular it preserves modal communication-safety of assemblies. A small case-study illustrates how our concepts can be methodologically applied.
ISSN:0001-5903
1432-0525
DOI:10.1007/s00236-015-0220-7