Abstract:

We aim at developing a formal, declarative specification language, for the design of distributed information systems, by combining the process algebraic language LOTOS for distributed system specification, and the object-oriented data modelling language, and in order to integrate them, their semantical models need to be unified. We examine these two languages, LOTOS and TM and analyze their formal semantics. We define a theoretical framework, in order to unify these semantical models. On the basis of this unified semantics, we discuss a variety of integration aspects of the two languages. We show a wide range of possible approaches to integrate LOTOS and TM specifications, point out their pros and cons, and compare them with respect to expressive power, flexibility, and conceptual clarity.