EXECUTABLE OBJECT MODELLING WITH STATE CHARTS By: David Harel & Eran Grey Presenter: Elizabeth Antony CISC 836
Jan 05, 2016
EXECUTABLE OBJECT MODELLING WITH STATE
CHARTSBy: David Harel & Eran GreyPresenter: Elizabeth Antony
CISC 836
Models
Desirable properties of Models
Models for the development of Object Oriented System should be: Behaviorally expressive Well structured And intuitive Semantics should be rigorously defined
Model properties cont’d
Semantics not well defined => produce fully executability and automatic code synthesis impossible
Statecharts must capture not only the state of the object as a precondition to service requests, but also the dynamics of the object’s internal behavior in responding to those requests and in maintaining relationships with other objects.
This paper ..Focuses on developing an integrated set of diagrammatic languages for object modelling, built around Statecharts.Language set includes :
Object Model DiagramsStateCharts
StateCharts
Statecharts extend statemachines or state diagrams with three elements namely, hierarchy, concurrency and communications
Complex systems such as multicomputer real time systems, communication protocols and digital control units
Source: [1]
Automated Rail Car System
Each car Cruise control Engine Max speed till it is within
80 yards from another car Each Platform
Single car Car within 100 yards from the terminal
platform and entrance segments allocated
Car departing terminal after being parked for 90 secs Exit segment allocated Turns off the destination indicator
Object Model Diagram
One diagram/systemClassesStructural relationships unidirectional bidirectional partof
RelationshipName or role
its
Car can refer to a set of its terminals itstopsAt
Navigation Expressions
Passenger->itsCar->stopsAtSet of all terminals that the carCarrying the passenger stopsAt
System->itsTerminal[1:6]
Is the object model diagram concerned with the static aspects only?
System refers to an explicit composite objectthat encloses the entire model
Behavioral semantics
Initialisation: What object instances are created at the start
and how the attributes and relationships with other objects are set up.
Dynamics over time: Dynamics concerns the way models behave
while running. Triggers like events, operations change the
model status
Initialisation – composite structures
Composite structures Associations initialisation scripts
Initialisation - Associations
Setting up relation ships and defining how instances collaborate Unambiguous Ambiguous but bounded unworkable
Unambiguous
Unworkable
Initialisation – initialising scripts
for (int car = 0; car < 6; car++){System -> itsCar[2*car] =
new Car(System -> itsTerminal[car]);System -> itsCar[2*car+1] =
new Car(System -> itsTerminal[car])}
StateCharts
An extension to statemachines and statediagrams
Used to model complex systems Describe how objects communicate and
collaborate and how they carry out their internal behavior
It must also reflect issues such as inheritance.
StateCharts – cont’d Object Communication and Collaboration:
Objects generate events (asynchronous) Invoke operation on an other object
(synchronous)
Obj B
Obj A
ObjC
Queue
Server
<Server> - > gen((<event name>(<parameters>))gen(<event name>(<parameters>)) // events that are generated within and
limited to the present state chart
Object Communication and Collaboration: Events
Event delegation If server A is a composite object
Who responds to the event e addressed to A ?
Composite object endowed with forwarding spec
delegate(e,B) delegate(e,B,C,…) broadcast(e)
Delegation continues down the tree of composites
Object Communication and Collaboration : Operations
<server> -> <operationname> (<parameters>)
Method call within the called object <operationname>(<parameters>)
Object Behavior
Statecharts can be
Full State hierarchy
Multilevel orthogonal ComponentsHistory connectors andBroadcast communication
used to describe “modal” `Partial statecharts
Only to specify pre and post conditions of operations Discard concurrent states and broadcast mechanism
Object Behavior – Triggers and Actions
Reactions of the form Trigger[condition]/action-list
Reactions can be adorned on the transition arrow or within a state’s reaction spec
A trigger – either an event expression or an operation request
Action – sequences of event generation expressions, operation invocations, and C++ statements
Object Behavior -Actions
in(s) test if the current statechart configuration
includes the state s tm(ev,n)
occurs t time units after event ev; the clock is reset to 0 upon each occurrence of event ev
Object Behavior - Actions
Creating and deleting instances <object> = new <classname>
(<parameters>) delete(object)
Adding and removing components from a composite instance <new component> = add<component
name>() Remove<component name>(<component
type>) Ex., stopsAt - > add(term)
Car is now scheduled to stop at the term also
Actions cont’d
Actions for maintaining association relationships Adding an object to the other end of a
relationship
<rolename> - > add(<objectname>) <rolename> - > remove(<object name>)
Statechart cont’d
Entrance to the statechart’s top level state is the initialisation entrance for any newly created instance of the object.
A reaction attached to the top level default arrow serves as an intialisation script for instances of that class.
Top level state chart - Car
Arrival portion
Departure portion
CarHandler Statechart
InheritanceEstablishing relationship between statecharts of a parent class A and its inherited subclass B:
Base the two statecharts on the same underlying state/transition topology.
Modify states by : decomposing a basic state by Or (substates) or by And(into orthogonal components)Modify the conditions and change the action-list by deleting some actions and adding new ones.
About the paper..
At the time the paper was written (1996), Event delegation was not implemented. This paper does not talk about concurrency Inheritance Rhapsody tool was not fully developed. I-Logix released Rhapsody in 1996 Now it is one of the products of IBM Rational
Software Unit.
http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~fleck/181content/statecharts.pdf
Harel, D.; Gery, E., "Executable object modeling with statecharts," Computer , vol.30, no.7, pp.31,42, Jul 1997
Statecharts: a visual formalism for complex systems by David Harel , Department of Applied Mathematics, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel,1987
Thank you.