An integrated CSP-based tool for the visualisation, animation and performance evaluation of message passing algorithms

This paper presents ongoing research and development on an integrated tool for the visualisation and animation of message-passing communicating systems described in Hoare´s CSP (Communicating Sequential Processes). It introduces major new developments to the original VisualNets implemented in C++ and reported in (Abdallah, 1998). The new tool is implemented partly in Java and partly in the functional programming language Haskell. Not only does the new tool enjoy greater expressive power and a better user interface, it has new capabilities for aiding the user in animating, analysing and reasoning about CSP specifications. These include provisions for nested parallelism within a single node, improved profiling and animation, and the possibility of applying generic timing cost models for performance evaluation. The paper briefly describes the new features, explains the methods by which they have been implemented and illustrates their use with examples