Specification of Reactive Hardware/Software Systems - Electronic ...

244 Data Part of POOSL
The first two expressions are instance variables and local variables 1 . The value of such a
variable expression is (a reference to) the object currently stored in that variable. The
next type of expression is the new expression. This expression indicates that a new
object (of class C) has to be created. The expression yields the newly created object.
Expression self refers to the object which is currently evaluating this expression.
The sixth type of expression is a message-send expression. Here E refers to the object to
which message m has to be sent and E1 ¥¡ ¡ ¡ ¥ En are the parameters of the message. When
a message-send expression is evaluated, first the destination expression is evaluated,
then the parameters are evaluated from left to right, and finally the message is sent to
the destination object. This latter object initialises its method parameters to the objects
in the message and initialises its local method variables to nil. Next, the receiving object
starts evaluating its method expression. The result of this evaluation is the result of the
send expression which is returned to the sending object.
Next, we have constant expressions ¥¡ ¡ ¡ , which refer to the above defined primitive
objects. stands for the direct naming (textual representation) of primitive object . An
expression can be composed from a statement and another expression. When such a
composite expression is evaluated, first the statement is executed and then the succeeding
expression is evaluated. The value of this latter expression will be the value of the
composite expression.
Next, we define the set Stat of data statements. We let S, ¡ ¡ range over Stat which is
defined as
S :: E
¡
¡
¡
x : E
u : E
S1; S2
if E then S1 else S2 fi ¡
do E then S od ¡
The first type of statement is a data expression. Executing such a statement means that
the expression is evaluated and the result is discarded. The effect of the execution is the
side-effect of the expression evaluation.
Next, we have two assignment statements: the first to an instance variable and the
second to a local variable. Upon execution of an assignment statement, the expression is
evaluated and the result, a primitive object or a reference to an object of a non-primitive
data class, is assigned to the variable.
Sequential composition, the if-statement, and the do-statement have their usual meaning. If
expression E of the if-statement or the do-statement evaluates to bunk, a non-deterministic
choice is taken whether the value should be interpreted as true or as false.
1 Note that we consider a parameter to be a local variable too.