A Generic Framework for Connector Architectures based on Components and Transformations

Abstract

The intention of this paper is to extend our generic component framework presented at FASE 2002 [4] to a specific kind of connector architectures similar to architectural connections in the sense of Allen and Garlan [1]. In our generic component framework we have considered components with explicit import, export and body parts connected by embeddings and transformations and composition of components with a compositional transformation semantics. Our framework, however, was restricted to components with a single import and export interface. Here we study architectures based on connectors with multiple imports and components with multiple exports. Architectures studied in this paper are built up from components and connectors in a noncircular way. The semantics of an architecture is defined by reduction step sequences in the sense of graph reductions. The main result shows existence and uniqueness of the semantics of an architecture as a normal form of reduction step sequences. Our generic framework is instantiated on one hand to connector architectures based on CSP as the formal specification technique in the approach by Allen and Garlan. On the other hand it is instantiated to connector architectures based on high-level-replacement systems in general and Petri nets in particular. A running example using Petri nets as modeling technique illustrates all concepts and results.

Architectural Connectors for Sequence Diagrams

“…In this paper, using the generic framework presented in previous work (e.g., [3,4,5], we have shown how to define architectural connectors and components, as introduced in [1], for UML2 sequence diagrams.…”

“…Later, we generalized this approach by allowing, for instance, that components could have several interfaces and adapted it to deal with architectural connectors. The approach is described in detail in [5], but preliminary results were presented in [4].…”

Integration of Categorical Frameworks: Rule-Based Refinement and Hierarchical Composition for Components

“…Most approaches used in practice have a component concept with multiple interfaces. The publications concerning the connector architectures based on the generic component approach [4,12,20] present of first step towards this goal. There the connectors have multiple import interfaces and the components have multiple export interfaces.…”

Research on the Composition Framework of Generic Component for Connector Architecture

“…The latter was more flexible than the former on component description and assembly. H.Ehrig [11] discussed the latter whole architecture with rule-based refinement. However, the import interfaces of connector were restricted to disjunction and the assembly algorithm was ignored in each reduction step.…”