xSADL: an architecture description language to specify component-based systems

Software architecture (SA) provides a formal basis to describe and analyze a software system as a collection of components and their interactions (connectors). However, the current understanding and specification for a connector are still insufficient. Furthermore, there still exists a gap between architecture design and component-based implementation. This paper attempts to tackle these problems by providing an architecture description language (ADL), xSADL. In the specification of a connector, xSADL can help designers to deal with two kinds of architectural mismatches: behavior mismatch and message mismatch. xSADL is also supported by a GUI-based CASE tool. To help transform the architecture design by xSADL to a component-based software implementation, a component framework, 3CoFramework, is also introduced. xSADLand 3CoFramework complement each other and construct an architecture-based component development environment.