Standard Forth Generation Language for Interface Specification and Simulation

It is extremely costly to develop or purchase specialized simulation software to test and evalutate a protocol's interfaces and message handling. A general purpose software simulation and specification tool, using a 4GL approach can be a powerful development aid for simulation and specification of software protocols. The tool can provide a means to develop protocols in terms of message format, content, and sequence. Message sequence can be defined in terms of events, states, and actions on either side of an interface. The developer is able to write and simulate protocols by defining the state tables which define the operational sequence, and can assess the impact of modifications to a protocol by adding and simulating new states and events. C code is generated that represents state tables, these tables are input to an executive for processing control. We propose to 1) develop the definition of the building blocks required to specify a protocol including message format, states, events and actions taken when a message is received at a node, and 2) create a prototype to demonstrate how the building blocks are accessed and used by a user. 3) Define a standard procedure to use for both defining and simulating an interface.