Separation of Control and Data Flow in High-Level Petri Nets: Transforming Dual Flow Nets into Object Petri Nets

Issue title: SPECIAL ISSUE ON CONCURRENCY SPECIFICATION AND PROGRAMMING (CS&P 2005) Ruciane-Nide, Poland, 28–30 September 2005

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Farwer, Berndt | Varea, Mauricio

Affiliations: University of Hamburg Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics, and Natural Sciences Department of Informatics Vogt-Kölln-Str. 30, D-22527 Hamburg. E-mail: farwer@informatik.uni-hamburg.de | School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK. E-mail: m.varea@ecs.soton.ac.uk

Abstract: This paper summarises two approaches, Dual Flow Nets (DFN) and Object Petri Nets (OPN), and offers a translation mechanism between them. While the DFN model tackles the separation of control and data flow computing aspects, the OPN model has a more generalised structure. The separation between control and data flow can enhance the readability of models, and allows different tools to operate on distinct parts of the model. The aim of this paper is to show how the modelling based on control/data-flow analysis can benefit from an object-based Petri net approach. Tool support and a translation mechanism that is faithful are presented, giving an extra dimension (hierarchy) to the existing paradigm of control and data flow interacting in a model. Our methodology provides a comprehensive separation of these two parts, which can be used to feed analysis or synthesis tools, while still being able to reason about both parts through formal methods of verification.

Journal: Fundamenta Informaticae, vol. 72, no. 1-3, pp. 123-137, 2006