Static Analysis of Actor Networks

Ernesto Wandeler

Technical Memorandum UCB/ERL M03/07, Diploma Thesis presented to Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, March 2003

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ABSTRACT

In this thesis we present a new interface theory based approach to static analysis of actor systems. We first introduce a new interface theory, which is based on Interface Automata [1] and which is capable of counting with natural numbers. Using this new interface theory, we can capture both, the temporal aspects of an actor interface as well as an actor's token exchange rate. We will show, how to automatically extract this information from actors written in the Cal Actor Language (CAL). We further present a method to capture the interface information as well as the connection information of dataflow system environments into an interface automaton. In our approach, this automaton acts as glue between the actor automata of the system, and by successfully composing all actor automata with it, we can prove interface compatibility of all actors with the system environment. After successful composition, the composition automaton will contain the complete token exchange information of the composite actor system. We will extract this information into a Petri Net, which we then analyse to make statements on boundedness, deadlock as well as on the existence of legal firing sequences for the composite actor system.

[1] L. de Alfaro and T.A. Henzinger, Interface Theories for Component-Based Design in Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Embedded Software (EMSOFT), 2001.