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Actors Upgraded for Variability, Adaptability, and Determinism

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Active Object Languages: Current Research Trends

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14360))

Abstract

The Rebeca modeling language is designed as an imperative actor-based language with the goal of providing an easy-to-use language for modeling concurrent and distributed systems, with formal verification support. Rebeca has been extended to support time and probability. We extend Rebeca further with inheritance, polymorphism, interface declaration, and annotation mechanisms. These features allow us to handle variability within the model, support non-disruptive model evolution, and define method priorities. This enables Rebeca to be used more effectively in different domains, like in Software Product Lines, and holistic analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems. We develop specialized analysis techniques to support these extensions, partly integrated into Afra, the model checking tool of Rebeca.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cyber-physical systems are also hybrid systems, bringing together cyber and physical components which are generally modeled differently. The interface between the cyber and the physical parts is also a source of complexity and an important research area that is not a topic of interest in this paper. This matter is addressed in Hybrid Rebeca introduced in [34].

  2. 2.

    In this paper we use the words message server and method interchangeably.

  3. 3.

    Note that this data value has no effect on the behavior of the actors in this specific model and is only generated to demonstrate the use of nondeterministic choice expression.

  4. 4.

    More precisely, the satisfiability check must incorporate the constraints imposed by the feature model too. To this end, a feature expression F must be derived from the feature model (as explained in [5]), and the satisfiability of \(e_1\wedge e_2\wedge F\) must be checked.

  5. 5.

    Of course, since the two features are mutually exclusive, this could have been done using only one feature variable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of ECE, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Ramtin Khosravi, Ehsan Khamespanah & Fatemeh Ghassemi

  2. School of IDT, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden

    Marjan Sirjani

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  1. Ramtin Khosravi
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  2. Ehsan Khamespanah
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  3. Fatemeh Ghassemi
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  4. Marjan Sirjani
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Correspondence to Ramtin Khosravi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Frank de Boer

  2. University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Ferruccio Damiani

  3. Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany

    Reiner Hähnle

  4. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Einar Broch Johnsen

  5. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Eduard Kamburjan

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Khosravi, R., Khamespanah, E., Ghassemi, F., Sirjani, M. (2024). Actors Upgraded for Variability, Adaptability, and Determinism. In: de Boer, F., Damiani, F., Hähnle, R., Broch Johnsen, E., Kamburjan, E. (eds) Active Object Languages: Current Research Trends. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14360. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51060-1_9

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