Semantics for OCCAM
Anton Eliëns · Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), the national research institute for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands · 1986
A brief description of the language Occam and its relation to the transputer is given.The problems in specifying a semantics dealing with the real-time instruction WAIT a period of time and the possibility of allocating distinct processes to distinct processors are indicated.A variety of semantics is presented, notably a linear time operational semantics on the basis of a transitionsystem in the style of (Pio), a branching time denotational semantics in the tradition of (BZ1) and a metric denotational semantics based on the concept of alternation as put forward in (CKS).One of the aims of developing the latter semantics was to investigate the possibility of an event-structure like semantics as proposed by (Re,Wi1) in a metric denotational framework as developed in (BZ1).A sketch is given of how to interrelate the semantics.