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Local Testing of Message Sequence Charts Is Difficult

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Fundamentals of Computation Theory (FCT 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 4639))

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Abstract

Message sequence charts are an attractive formalism for specifying communicating systems. One way to test such a system is to substitute a component by a test process and observe its interaction with the rest of the system. Unfortunately, local observations can combine in unexpected ways to define implied scenarios not present in the original specification. Checking whether a scenario specification is closed with respect to implied scenarios is known to be undecidable when observations are made one process at a time. We show that even if we strengthen the observer to be able to observe multiple processes simultaneously, the problem remains undecidable. In fact, undecidability continues to hold even without message labels, provided we observe two or more processes simultaneously. On the other hand, without message labels, if we observe one process at a time, checking for implied scenarios is decidable.

Partially supported by Timed-DISCOVERI, a project under the Indo-French Networking Programme.

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Erzsébet Csuhaj-Varjú Zoltán Ésik

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Bhateja, P., Gastin, P., Mukund, M., Kumar, K.N. (2007). Local Testing of Message Sequence Charts Is Difficult. In: Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Ésik, Z. (eds) Fundamentals of Computation Theory. FCT 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4639. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74240-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74240-1_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74239-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74240-1

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