Formal semantics, compilation and execution of the GALS programming language dSystemJ

Abstract

The paper presents a programming language, DSystemJ, for dynamic distributed Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS) systems, its formal model of computation, formal syntax and semantics, its compilation and implementation. The language is aimed at dynamic distributed systems, which use socket based communication protocols for communicating between components. DSystemJ allows the creation and control at runtime of asynchronous processes called clock-domains, their mobility on a distributed execution platform, as well as the runtime reconfiguration of the system's functionality and topology. As DSystemJ is based on a GALS model of computation and has a formal semantics, it offers very safe mechanisms for implementation of distributed systems, as well as potential for their formal verification. The details and principles of its compilation, as well as its required runtime support are described. The runtime support is implemented in the SystemJ GALS language that can be considered as a static subset of DSystemJ. © 2012 IEEE.