Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications

Nowostawski, Mariusz; Purvis, Martin; Cranefield, Stephen

Login to OUR Archive using your University of Otago credentials. We have changed how you log into OUR Archive so you will not need to create another account in order to deposit your research outputs. If you have bookmarked the old login page, please update your bookmarks. Note: This change will not affect Thesis Deposit, because an account is not required to submit your e-thesis.

Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications

Cranefield, Stephen; Purvis, Martin; Nowostawski, Mariusz

Cite this item: Cranefield, S., Purvis, M., & Nowostawski, M. (2001). Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications (Information Science Discussion Papers Series No. 2001/03). University of Otago. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10523/1128

Permanent link to OUR Archive version: http://hdl.handle.net/10523/1128

Date: 2001-02

Publisher: University of Otago

Pages: 10

Series: Information Science Discussion Papers Series

Series number: 2001/03

Keywords: agent communication languages; abstract syntax; UML; XMI; Java binding; marshalling; RDF

Research Type: Discussion Paper

Abstract:

This paper proposes the use of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) as a formalism for defining an abstract syntax for Agent Communication Languages (ACLs) and their associated content languages. It describes an approach supporting an automatic mapping from high-level abstract specifications of language structures to specific computer language bindings that can be directly used by an agent platform. Some advantages of this approach are that it provides a framework for specifying and experimenting with alternative agent communication languages and reduces the error-prone manual process of generating compatible bindings and grammars for different syntaxes. A prototype implementation supporting an automatic conversion from an abstract communication language expressed in UML to a native Java API and a Resource Description Framework (RDF) serialisation format is described.

Show full item record