Concurrent programming in VISO

Concurrent programming is more difficult to use and understand than sequential programming. In order to simplify this type of programming a number of approaches have been developed such as visual programming. Visual Occam (VISO) is a visual programming language for concurrent programming. It has a graphical syntax based on the language Occam and its semantics is represented both in petri net and process calculus. This paper presents a modular visual approach to write concurrent programs using the VISO language. Concurrent programs in VISO are specified graphically at different levels of abstraction. This paper describes this modular visual approach by constructing two examples in VISO. The first example is a simple concurrent program and it is mainly used to show the details of constructing a concurrent program in VISO. The second example is a larger concurrent program with more levels of abstraction. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nautilus, a Concurrent Diagrammatic Specification and Programming Language

Nautilus is a high-level specification and programming language having abstraction mechanisms not commonly found in other programming languages inspired by its semantic domain (a categorial model named Nonsequential Automata). It constitutes an elegant solution for concurrency and non-determinism as well as for synchronization of concurrent systems. The role as specification language highlights the diagrammatic syntax (it was originally text based).The diagrammatic syntax for Nautilus allows complete programs to be written using symbols and graphical diagrams. The graphical notation was elaborated in order to be able to express all the structures in the language, yet trying to improve the visualization of written programs. A brief comparison with UML is included. To support Nautilus as a programming language, a mapping to Java is constructed, setting the basis for an execution environment of Nautilus specifications.     

Continuation-Passing C, compiling threads to events through continuations

In this paper, we introduce Continuation Passing C (CPC), a programming language for concurrent systems in which native and cooperative threads are unified and presented to the programmer as a single abstraction. The CPC compiler uses a compilation technique, based on the CPS transform, that yields efficient code and an extremely lightweight representation for contexts. We provide a proof of the correctness of our compilation scheme. We show in particular that lambda-lifting, a common compilation technique for functional languages, is also correct in an imperative language like C, under some conditions enforced by the CPC compiler. The current CPC compiler is mature enough to write substantial programs such as Hekate, a highly concurrent BitTorrent seeder. Our benchmark results show that CPC is as efficient, while using significantly less space, as the most efficient thread libraries available.     

A platform-independent metamodel for multiagent systems

Various agent-oriented methodologies and metamodels exist to design and develop multiagent systems (MAS) in an abstract manner. Frequently, these frameworks specialise on particular parts of the MAS and only few works have been invested to derive a common standardisation. This limits the impact of agent-related systems in commercial applications. In this paper, we present a metamodel for agent systems that abstracts from existing agent-oriented methodologies, programming languages, and platforms and could thus be considered as platform-independent. This metamodel defines the abstract syntax of a proposed domain-specific modelling language for MAS that is currently under development and provides furthermore the base to generate code out of the generated designs. This is done by applying the principles of model-driven development (MDD) and providing two model transformations that allow transforming the generated models into textual code that can be executed with JACK and JADE.     

A transformation contract to generate aspects from access control policies

Access control is an important security issue. It has been addressed since the late 1960s in the early time-sharing computer systems. Many access control models have been proposed since than but of particular interest is Ferraiolo and Khun’s role-based access control model (RBAC). It is a simple and yet general model which has been deeply studied and applied both in industry and in academia. A variety of industrial standards have been proposed based on this model. Generating code for an access control policy is an interesting challenge. Understanding access control as a non-functional concern that cross-cuts the functional part of a system raises difficulties quite suitable for a solution based on aspect-oriented programming. In this paper, we address the problems of specification and validation of code generation for access control policies targeting an aspect-based infra-structure. We propose an MDA approach. The code generator is a transformation from SecureUML, an RBAC-based modeling language, to the language Aspects for Access Control (AAC), an aspect-oriented modeling language proposed in this paper. Metamodels are used to represent the languages and to specify the transformation. A metamodel is used to represent the abstract syntax of a language and the constraints that a given instance model of the metamodel must fulfill. We also use a metamodel to specify the code generator. This transformation metamodel, together with all the constraints, that is, from both languages and those constraints regarding the merge of the two languages, we call a transformation contract. It merges and conservatively extends the source and target metamodels of the model transformation it represents. In the context of code-generation for access control policies, the transformation contract specifies the relationships between the abstract syntaxes of SecureUML and AAC and constrains the two languages. The validation of the code generator also uses the transformation contract. For a given access control policy and aspect, represented as instances of the appropriate metamodels, with aspects produced by the code generator, the constraints of the transformation contract must hold. We have prototyped a transformer from SecureUML to aspects on top of ITP/OCL, an OCL interpreter that automatically validates the generated aspect code by applying the constraints of the transformation contract.     

Predicates and pixels

This paper explores the possibilities of programming with graphical representations of logic programs. Two example programs are given in the concurrent logic language FGDC but many languages based on rewrite rules would be suitable for the same treatment. A graphical syntax promises to make programming in suitable ultra high level languages easier and more intuitive.     

From Macrogeneration to Syntactic Abstraction

In his 1967 lecture notes, Christopher Strachey states that macrogenerators are useful as the only alternative to rewriting the compiler when language extensions are needed. He also states, however, that they deal inappropriately with programs as strings of symbols, ignoring their semantic content, and that they lead to inconvenient syntax and often less transparent code. He concludes that a goal of language designers should be to eliminate the need for macrogeneration. This article attempts to reconcile the contemporary view of syntactic abstraction, which deals with programs at a higher level, with Strachey's views on macrogeneration.Syntactic abstraction has evolved to address the deficiencies of macrogeneration and has, to a large extent, eliminated them. Syntactic abstractions are conveniently expressed, conveniently used, and usually lead to more rather than less transparent code. While a worthwhile goal for language designers is to reduce the need for macrogeneration through the inclusion of an appropriate set of built-in syntactic forms, this article concludes that syntactic abstraction is a valuable tool for programmers to define language extensions that are not anticipated by the language designer or are domain-specific and therefore not of sufficiently general use to be included in the language core.     

基于JavaCC的C代码自动并行化的设计与实现

针对当前大量遗产代码无法重复利用的问题,设计一种新的编译工具将C的串行代码转换为基于MPI+OpenMP的混合并行编程代码,降低了并行编程的开发成本。首先,通过对JavaCC的优化,实现一种可以解析C语言的词法和语法分析器,进行源代码分析并生成抽象语法树;其次,根据语法树对源代码进行控制依赖性和数据依赖性分析,产生可并行化的语句块分区;再次,按照提出的并行代码生成方法得到目标代码;最后,基于Visual Studio 2010构建目标代码仿真验证环境。实验结果表明,该工具可以较为理想地实现串行代码自动并行化,与手工编写的代码在加速比上的误差为8.2%~18.4%。     

Weaving variability into domain metamodels

Domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) are the essence of MDE. A DSML describes the concepts of a particular domain in a metamodel, as well as their relationships. Using a DSML, it is possible to describe a wide range of different models that often share a common base and vary on some parts. On the one hand, some current approaches tend to distinguish the variability language from the DSMLs themselves, implying greater learning curve for DSMLs stakeholders and a significant overhead in product line engineering. On the other hand, approaches integrating variability in DSMLs lack generality and tool support. We argue that aspect-oriented modeling techniques enabling flexible metamodel composition and results obtained by the software product line community to manage and resolve variability form the pillars for a solution for integrating variability into DSMLs. In this article, we consider variability as an independent and generic aspect to be woven into the DSML. In particular, we detail how variability is woven and how to perform product line derivation. We validate our approach through the weaving of variability into two different metamodels: Ecore??widely used for DSML definition??and SmartAdapters, our aspect model weaver. These results emphasize how new abilities of the language can be provided by this means.     

基于标记语言的跨平台并行编程框架设计

大量遗留的串行代码需要进行并行化改造,而并行程序复杂性及并行计算平台多样性导致改造成本较高.为此,设计了一种基于标记语言的三层并行编程框架,完成了从串行程序层到并行中间代码层、并行中间代码层到目标并行编程语言程序层的二个转换阶段.采用对串行代码进行语言标记的方法来实现并行中间代码层,该代码层实际是共享存储、分布式存储并行平台编程语言的一种抽象.该框架还实现了一种性能标记方法,可用于并行参数自动寻优.用于雷达数据处理的实验结果表明,实现了对应并行代码的生成,且并行加速比与人工实现的并行代码相当.     

Code generators

Code generators, which take a programmer's inputs in the form of some abstraction, design, or direct interaction with the system and write out a source program that implements the details of the application, are reviewed. After a brief overview, four separate presentations cover examples of such systems from four domains. The Tags tools uses abstraction to specify real-time control systems. In this tool, the details of synchronization code are hidden from the designer, but some functionality must still be provided in detail. Microstep is a similar kind of tool for data-processing applications. One can view both Tags and Microstep as high-level specification languages. PSG generates programming environments, i.e. one gives it a nonprocedural specification of a language's syntax and it generates an integrated programming environment for that language. While one must specify the environment in detailed form, the actual code generation is hidden. Escort is a similar system specialized for telecommunications applications. It lets one build, execute, and test specifications for telecommunication systems. Both PSG and Escort illustrate the power of domain-specific tools     

A comparison of concurrent programming and cooperative multithreading under load balancing applications

Two models of thread execution are the general concurrent programming execution model (CP) and the cooperative multithreading execution model (CM). CP provides nondeterministic thread execution where context switches occur arbitrarily. CM provides threads that execute one at a time until they explicitly choose to yield the processor. This paper focuses on a classic application to reveal the advantages and disadvantages of load balancing during thread execution under CP and CM styles; results from a second classic application were similar. These applications are programmed in two different languages (SR and Dynamic C) on different hardware (standard PCs and embedded system controllers). An SR‐like run‐time system, DesCaRTeS, was developed to provide interprocess communication for the Dynamic C implementations. This paper compares load balancing and non‐load balancing implementations; it also compares CP and CM style implementations. The results show that in cases of very high or very low workloads, load balancing slightly hindered performance; and in cases of moderate workload, both SR and Dynamic C implementations of load balancing generally performed well. Further, for these applications, CM style programs outperform CP style programs in some cases, but the opposite occurs in some other cases. This paper also discusses qualitative tradeoffs between CM style programming and CP style programming for these applications. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

反例引导的C代码空间流模型检测方法

软件验证一直是确保软件正确性和安全性的热点研究问题.然而,由于程序语言复杂的语法语义特性,应用形式化方法验证程序的正确性存在准确度低和效率差的问题.其中,由指针操作带来的地址空间的状态变化使得现有模型检测方法的检测准确度难以得到保证.为此,通过结合模型检测与稀疏值流分析方法,设计了一种空间流模型,实现了对C程序在符号变量层面和地址空间层面的状态行为的有效描述,并提出了一种反例引导的抽象细化和稀疏值流强更新算法(CEGAS),实现了C程序指向信息敏感的形式化验证.建立了包含多种指针操作的C代码基准库,并基于该基准库进行了对比实验.实验结果表明:所提出的模型检测算法CEGAS在分析含有多种C代码特性的任务中,与现有模型检测工具相比均能取得突出的结果,其检测准确度为92.9%,每行代码的平均检测时间为2.58 ms,优于现有检测工具.     

Concurrent C++: Concurrent programming with class(es)

C++ and Concurrent C are both upward-compatible supersets of C that provide data abstraction and parallel programming facilities, respectively. Although data abstraction facilities are important for writing concurrent programs, we did not provide data abstraction facilities in Concurrent C because we did not want to duplicate the C++ research effort. Instead, we decided that we would eventually integrate C++ and Concurrent C facilities to produce a language with both data abstraction and parallel programming facilities, namely, Concurrent C++. Data abstraction and parallel programming facilities are orthogonal. Despite this, the merger of Concurrent C and C++ raised several integration issues. In this paper, we will give introductions to C++ and Concurrent C, give two examples illustrating the advantages of using data abstraction facilities in concurrent programs, and discuss issues in integrating C++ and Concurrent C to produce Concurrent C++.     

基于多模态对比学习的代码表征增强预训练方法

代码表征旨在融合源代码的特征,以获取其语义向量,在基于深度学习的代码智能中扮演着重要角色.传统基于手工的代码表征依赖领域专家的标注,繁重耗时,且无法灵活地复用于特定下游任务,这与绿色低碳的发展理念极不相符.因此,近年来,许多自监督学习的编程语言大规模预训练模型(如CodeBERT)应运而生,为获取通用代码表征提供了有效途径.这些模型通过预训练获得通用的代码表征,然后在具体任务上进行微调,取得了显著成果.但是,要准确表示代码的语义信息,需要融合所有抽象层次的特征(文本级、语义级、功能级和结构级).然而,现有模型将编程语言仅视为类似于自然语言的普通文本序列,忽略了它的功能级和结构级特征.因此,旨在进一步提高代码表征的准确性,提出了基于多模态对比学习的代码表征增强的预训练模型(representation enhanced contrastive multimodal pretraining, REcomp). REcomp设计了新的语义级-结构级特征融合算法,将它用于序列化抽象语法树,并通过多模态对比学习的方法将该复合特征与编程语言的文本级和功能级特征相融合,以实现更精准的语义建模.最后,...     

Symbolic execution of concurrent systems using Petri nets

Techniques for analyzing sequential programs in order to improve their reliability have been widely studied in the past. Among the most interesting analysis techniques, we consider symbolic execution. However, analysis techniques for concurrent programs, and in particular symbolic execution, are still an open research area. In this paper, we define a method for symbolic execution of concurrent systems, based on an extension of the Petri net formalism, called EF nets. EF nets are a powerful, highly expressive and general formalism. Depending on the level of abstraction of actions and predicates that one associates to the transitions of the net, EF nets can be used as a high-level specification formalism for concurrent systems, or as a lower level internal representation of concurrent programs. Thus, the model is not dependent on a particular concurrent programming language, but it is flexible enough to be the kernel model for the representation of a wide set of systems and programming languages. In the paper, in order to support the analysis of a concurrent system or program, at first a general algorithm for symbolically executing an EF net is defined. Then, a more efficient algorithm is given for the particular, though important, subclass of EF nets, defined as safe EF nets. Such algorithm is proved to significantly help in reducing the amount of information needed to characterize a symbolic execution. Both the modelling power of the EF nets and the usefulness of the concurrent symbolic execution algorithms defined are illustrated by means of a case study.     

Automating the construction of domain-specific modeling languages for object-oriented frameworks

The extension of frameworks with domain-specific modeling languages (DSML) has proved to be an effective way of improving the productivity in software product-line engineering. However, developing and evolving a DSML is typically a difficult and time-consuming task because it requires to develop and maintain a code generator, which transforms application models into framework-based code. In this paper, we propose a new approach for extending object-oriented frameworks that aims to alleviate this problem. The approach is based on developing an additional aspect-oriented layer that encodes a DSML for building framework-based applications, eliminating the need of implementing a code generator. We further show how a language workbench is capable of automating the construction of DSMLs using the proposed layer.     

JAC: declarative Java concurrency

The Java programming language has a low‐level concurrency model which is hard to use and does not blend well with inheritance. JAC is an extension of Java that introduces a higher level of concurrency, hiding threads and separating thread synchronization from application logic in a declarative fashion. The emphasis is on limiting the differences between sequential and concurrent code, thus furthering code reuse, and on avoiding inheritance anomalies. This is achieved by taking a middle road between concurrent code on the one hand and complete separation of sequential application logic from concurrency mechanisms on the other. An extensive comparison with related approaches is given for motivating our design decisions. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.