Uncovering architectural mismatch in component behavior

When constructing software systems from existing components, the engineer is faced with the problem of potential conflicts in the interactions among the components. Of particular difficulty is guaranteeing compatibility in the dynamic interaction behavior. Using an architectural description of the system and its intended components, the engineer can reason about the interactions early and at a high level of abstraction. In this paper we give a case study of the Compressing Proxy system, which was first investigated by Garlan, Kindred, and Wing. We present architectural specifications and analyses of two versions of the system. One version is a seemingly obvious melding of the components. The other is a solution to deadlock problems uncovered by formal analyses of the first version. We use the Chemical Abstract Machine as an example of an architectural description formalism that can help uncover architectural mismatches in the behavior of components. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.