A Framework for Translating Models and Speci cations

The reasons for translating a description of a model in one notation into another are reviewed This includes both translating en tire models and describing di erent aspects of a system using di erent notations In order to demonstrate the ideas the VeriTech framework for translation is described A system being analyzed is seen as a collection of versions along with a description of how the versions are related The versions are given in di erent notations connected through a core notation by compil ers from and to the notations of existing tools and speci cation methods The reasons that translations cannot always be exact are analyzed based on experience with over ten separate compiler translations among formal methods notations Additional information gathered during translation is described to facilitate optimizations error tracing and analysis The concept is presented of a faithful relation among models and families of properties true of those models In this framework families of prop erties are provided with uniform syntactic transformations in addition to the translations of the models This framework is shown appropriate for common instances of relations among translations previously treated in an ad hoc way The classes of properties that can be faithful for a given translation provide a measure of the usefulness of the translation Open research directions are suggested concerning faithful transforma tions additional information error tracing and optimizing translations