Michel Dauphin

A common compiler for LOTOS and SDL specifications

This paper describes a translation of LOTOS and SDL specification languages into executable code, as it was prototyped in the Specification and Programming Environment for Communication Software (SPECS) project under the Research and Development in Advanced Communications in Europe (RACE) program. Both languages are translated into a common intermediate representation in the form of a network of state machines with both synchronous and asynchronous communications. By a series of transformations that make full use of the equivalence relations defined on LOTOS processes, this translation solves unique problems stemming from the highly abstract nature of LOTOS. The common intermediate representation is mapped into C code that can be executed in a specific run-time environment, implemented on a UNIX®-like operating system. SPECS has also developed a pragmatic approach to represent implementable data types in the algebraic framework of LOTOS and SDL, based on a set of predefined type constructors.

The European telecommunications research and development program RACE and its software project SPECS

This paper presents the RACE program and the objectives and achievements of SPECS, a representative RACE project. The European Commission has set up the research and development program RACE for the preparation and promotion of an integrated broadband communication system in Europe. The SPECS project develops methods and techniques for the development of the complex software needed by this communication system. Its approach is the use of formal methods and maximum automation. A unique feature of this approach is the support of multiple specification languages, including the ability to mix specification languages within a given system design.

SPECS: Formal methods and techniques for telecommunications software development

Abstract The SPECS project, part of the RACE Programme of the EEC, has defined an open methodology and an open support architecture for the rapid and cost-effective development of the software for the IBC, the future European broadband communications network. The SPECS methodology recommends the extensive use of formal specification languages as a basis for maximum automation. Through the concept of semantic integration, the SPECS architecture provides support for several specification languages, including the possibility to mix them in a given system description. The SPECS approach is being validated by a pilot case study that uses prototype implementation of the SPECS architecture, supporting the standardised specification languages SDL and LOTOS.