Compiling SCCharts — A case-study on interactive model-based compilation

Abstract

SCCharts is a recently proposed statechart language designed for specifying safety-critical reactive systems. We have developed an Eclipse-based compilation chain that synthesizes SCCharts into either hardware or software. The user edits a textual description which is visualized as SCChart and subsequently transformed into VHDL or C code via a series of model-to-model (M2M) transformation steps. An interactive environment gives the user control over which transformations are applied and allows the user to inspect intermediate transformation results. This Single-Pass Language-Driven Incremental Compilation (SLIC) approach should conceptually be applicable to other languages as well. Key benefits are: (1) a compact, light-weight definition of the core semantics, (2) intermediate transformation results open to inspection and support for certification, (3) high-level formulations of transformations that define advanced language constructs, (4) a divide-and-conquer validation strategy, (5) simplified language/compiler subsetting and DSL construction.