Parallel run-time for CO-OPN

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia InformáticaDomain Specific Modeling (DSM) is a methodology to provide programs or system’s specification at higher level of abstraction, making use of domain concepts instead of low level programming details. To support this approach, we need to have enough expressive power in terms of those domain concepts, which means that we need to develop new languages , usually termed Domain Specific Languages (DSLs). An approach to execute specifications developed using DSLs goes by applying a model transformation technique to produce a specification in another language. These transformation techniques are applied sucessively until the specification reaches a language with an implemented run-time. The language named Concurrent Object-Oriented Petri Nets (CO-OPN) is being used successfully as a target language for such model transformation techniques. CO-OPN is an object-oriented formal language for specifying concurrent systems, that separates coordination from computational tasks. CO-OPN offers mechanisms to define the system structure and behavior, and like DSLs, relieves the developer from stipulate how that structure and behavior are attained by the underlying system. The currently available code generator for CO-OPN only produces sequential code, despite of this language potential of expressing specifications rich in concurrent behavior. The generated sequential code can be executed either in a Sequential Run-Time or in the step simulator, which is part of CO-OPN Builder IDE. The generation of sequential code turns out to be an adversity to CO-OPN application since concurrent specifications cannot be executed in parallel and therefore this languages potential is not fully exploited. This dissertation aims at filling this CO-OPN’s execution gap, through the development of a Parallel Run-Time. The new Run-Time is achieved through the adaptation of the sequential code generator and actual execution support mechanisms. In this manner, all concurrent specifications that target CO-OPN benefit from thread safe code, ready for execution in parallel and distributed environments, relieving the developer from delving into parallel programming details.By guaranteeing a safe execution environment, CO-OPN becomes an alternative to the way parallel software is nowadays developed