An experimental approach towards the XML representation of Petri net models

XML has attracted many application developers because it eases the interchange of data between heterogeneous applications. XML based proposal are currently being elaborated to store Petri nets models. The fact that some Petri nets tools already use XML for storage purposes shows that XML may be suitable for Petri nets tools. But it also raises the question of interchange of models between different tools. Indeed, each tool defines its own storage format (DTD—Document Type Definition) using XML, which can make the interchange difficult if the DTD is not standardised. In order to get insights for the definition of standard XML representations, we have set up a research team whose goals are the following: (1) make a survey of the available tools in order to gather information about the various features they support; (2) extract and build a taxonomy of formalisms in order to identify clusters of Petri net dialects that have the same needs; (3) and finally propose a XML representation standard for Petri nets tools derived from this taxonomy. This paper presents the preliminary results derived from our survey and will be completed according to incoming information up to the Petri net conference. An experimental approach towards the XML representation of Petri net models Ousmane Sy, Mathieu Buffo, Didier Buchs 1 LIHS-FROGIS Université Toulouse I 1, place Anatole France F-31042 Toulouse CEDEX, France{ bastide,sy}@univtlse1.fr 2 Software Engineering Laboratory (EPFL-DI-LGL) Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Ecublens CH-1015 Lausanne Switzerland [email protected] 3 [email protected] Abstract. XML has attracted many application developers because it eases the interchange of data XML has attracted many application developers because it eases the interchange of data between heterogeneous applications. XML based proposal are currently being elaborated to store Petri nets models. The fact that some Petri nets tools already use XML for storage purposes shows that XML may be suitable for Petri nets tools. But it also raises the question of interchange of models between different tools. Indeed, each tool defines its own storage format (DTD—Document Type Definition) using XML, which can make the interchange difficult if the DTD is not standardised. In order to get insights for the definition of standard XML representations, we have set up a research team whose goals are the following: (1) make a survey of the available tools in order to gather information about the various features they support; (2) extract and build a taxonomy of formalisms in order to identify clusters of Petri net dialects that have the same needs; (3) and finally propose a XML representation standard for Petri nets tools derived from this taxonomy. This paper presents the preliminary results derived from our survey and will be completed according to incoming information up to the Petri net conference.