Abstract
This paper provides an actor semantics using a formalism called CO-OPN (Concurrent Object Oriented Petri Nets) which is modular and incorporates both concurrency and data structuring features. Actor languages are the main model of concurrent object-oriented languages, but they are rarely well formalized. CO-OPN is a structured extension of Petri nets and algebraic abstract data types. A CO-OPN specification is composed of a set of objects (algebraic abstract data types and Petri nets), and of a synchronous communication mechanism. This synchronization mechanism is defined in order to keep object state encapsulation, allowing the independent specification of each object. The translation of an actor program into a CO-OPN specification is done by building objects for actors. The adequacy of CO-OPN in describing the semantics of concurrent object-oriented languages is shown by this formal semantic description of actor languages. Some particular implementations are suggested, improving the concurrent execution of actor programs.
This work has been supported by the “Fond National Suisse de la recherche Scientifique” and by the “ESPRIT” basic research action, “DEMON”, n∘ 3148.
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Buchs, D., Guelfi, N. (1993). Formal development of actor programs using structured algebraic petri nets. In: Bode, A., Reeve, M., Wolf, G. (eds) PARLE '93 Parallel Architectures and Languages Europe. PARLE 1993. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 694. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-56891-3_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-56891-3_28
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