Connector colouring I: Synchronisation and context dependency

Reo is a coordination model based on circuit-like connectors which coordinate components through the interplay of data flow, synchronisation and mutual exclusion, state, and context-dependent behaviour. This paper proposes a scheme based on connector colouring for determining the behaviour of a Reo connector by resolving its context dependent synchronisation and mutual exclusion constraints. Colouring a Reo connector in a specific state with given boundary conditions (I/O requests) provides a means to determine the routing alternatives for data flow. Our scheme has the advantage over previous models in that it is simpler to implement and that it models Reo connectors more closely in terms of their envisaged semantics than existing formal models. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.