A Translation of Statecharts and Activitycharts into Signal Equations
Résumé
The languages for modeling reactive systems can be divided in two styles: the imperative, state-based ones and the declarative, data-flow ones. Each of them is best adapted to a given application domain. This paper, through the example of the languages Statecharts and Signal, shows a way to translate an imperative specification (Statecharts) to a declarative, equational one (Signal). This translation makes multi-formalism specification possible, and provides a support for the interoperability of the languages. It gives access from a Statecharts specification to the DC+ exchange format between the tools implementing the synchronous technology, using e.g. the clock calculus available in Signal. Statecharts specifications can thereby be applied functionalities of verification, validation, compilation, optimization, efficient and compact code generation, distributed and execution architecture-dependent code generation. The results presented here cover the essential features of StateCharts as well as of another language of Statemate: Activitycharts.