System Model Semantics of Statecharts
This work addresses the need for precise semantics in modeling languages for software engineers, but it is incremental as it builds on prior work and focuses on a specific variant.
The authors tackled the problem of defining formal semantics for Statecharts, specifically UML/P Statecharts, by using a system model approach, resulting in a denotational mapping that simplifies and clarifies the semantics while allowing integration with existing Statechart semantics.
In this report, semantics for Statecharts is defined based on a mathematical model of object systems called "system model". The semantics definition is detailed for UML/P Statecharts, a variant of Statecharts which restricts the use of a few methodologically and semantically difficult concepts. After transforming full UML/P Statecharts to simplified but semantically equivalent Statecharts, the semantics is defined denotationally as a mapping into the system model. It is also sketched how already existing Statechart semantics can be mapped into the system model. This report follows, in which we introduced our approach in detail and defined semantics for UML class diagrams.