Rebeca: Theory, applications, and tools

Abstract

Rebeca is an actor-based language with a formal foundation for modeling concurrent and distributed systems which is designed in an effort to bridge the gap between formal verification approaches and real applications. Rebeca is supported by a tool-set for model checking Rebeca models. Inherent characteristics of Rebeca are used to introduce compositional verification, abstraction, symmetry and partial order reduction techniques for reducing the state space. Simple message-driven object-based computational model, Java-like syntax, and set of verification tools make Rebeca an interesting and easy-to-learn model for practitioners. This paper is to present theories, applications, and supporting tools of Rebeca in a consistent and distilled form. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.