Questionnaire for a taxonomy of Petri net dialects
(preliminary to the reflexion of building an exchange format standard)

Introduction and user manual

Please find here a questionnaire dedicated to the definition of the main characteristics of Petri net dialects used in tools.

Objectives of this form

The aim of this form is to gather information about current tools for editing dialects of Petri nets. This information will be used for defining a common XML representation of models. Such a common representation will be of great help for allowing seamless integration of Petri nets based editing tools.

Guidelines

Please read carefully the following before filling in the form:

  • you should ground your answers on previously published work. So for each information you should be able to give a reference to a paper, book, etc, where this information is available. In case the access to the reference is restricted please make this information clear.
  • you should only describe the characteristics of your formalism according to what is currently implemented in your tool. Please do not describe characteristics that are under integration or that are under consideration for a possible integration.
  • you should not include information about the graphical representation of your formalism in your tool.

This questionnaire is divided in 6 sections:

  • "General information" where you provide information to point out your tool,
  • "Place characteristics" where your provide us with information regarding places in your Petri net dialect,
  • "Transition characteristics" where your provide us with information regarding transitions in your Petri net dialect,
  • "Arc characteristics" where you provide us with information regarding the arcs in your Petri net dialect,
  • "Net definition" where your provide us with information regarding general aspects in your Petri net dialect (such as color definition etc.)
  • "Net composition" where you provide us with information regarding composition capabilities in your Petri net dialect (if any).

Please note that, on the rightmost colomn (purple background color), an example of answer is provided to guide you to fill this questionnaire. This example corresponds to the AMI-Net dialect as implemented in CPN-AMI (Well formed nets as defined in G. Chiola, C. Dutheillet, G. Franceschini & S. Haddad, "On Well-Formed Coloured Nets and their Symbolic Reachability Graph", High Level Petri Nets. Theory and Application. Edited by K. Jensen G.Rozenberg, Springer Verlag 1991).

Some examples of form filling are available here.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

R. Bastide, D. Buchs, M. Buffo, F. Kordon & O.Sy

General information on the tool

General information

Please provide us with some general information about your tool: its name, the name of the corresponding Petri net dialect, what type of Petri net do you think it is, some email contact, URL and the type of the tool (academic, commercial etc.).

If your tool has no web site, please provide a single space as the URL.

related tool name

CPN-AMI

Petri net
dialect name

AMI-Nets

type of supported Petri net


If Others, please define it textually

Well Formed Colored Nets

email contact

Fabrice.Kordon@lip6.fr

URL

http://www.lip6.fr/cpn-ami

Origin of tool

Academic (free)

Net definition

Explanation for net definifion

This section defines the main elements that constitute a Petri net. It is composed with a set of Places, a set of Transitions, a set of arcs and a declarative part (for example, for colors domains etc.).


Missing elements for nets (if any)

Please put here the simple elements that do not appear to be predefined.

Element 1
Element 2
Element 3
Element 4

color domains
or type

no class ("black" tokens)
finite (enumerations)
product of finite domains
any type definition
product of any type
Others

no class
finite
product of finite domains

color functions
or operations

constant
identity
product/records
modulo successor
modulo predecessor
broadcast function
marking dependent functions
any user's function (prog. language)
Sigma-algebra
Others

constant
identity
product
modulo successor
modulo predecessor
broadcast

Places characteristics

Explanation for places

This section defines the main elements that can be found in a Petri net place. If there are additional elements that are not listed here, please add them on the above sections.


Missing elements for places (if any)

Please put here the simple elements that do not appear to be predefined.

Element 1
Element 2
Element 3
Element 4

typed or
colored place

Yes

marking value

Bag

special place


If yes, what types
FIFO place
Others

No

capacity information

No

priority

No

probability

No

time

No

delay

No

Transition characteristics

Explanation for transitions

This section defines the main elements that can be found in a Petri net transition. If there are additional elements that are not listed here, please add them on the above sections.


Missing elements for transitions (if any)

Please put here the simple elements that do not appear to be predefined.

Element 1
Element 2
Element 3
Element 4

label

No

guard

Yes

action
(associated code)

No

transition type


If yes, what types
immediate
Others

No

priority

No

probability

No

time

No

delay

No

Arc characteristics

Explanation for arcs

This section defines the main elements that can be found in a Petri net arc. If there are additional elements that are not listed here, please add them on the above sections.


Missing elements for arcs (if any)

Please put here the simple elements that do not appear to be predefined.

Element 1
Element 2
Element 3
Element 4

label

Expressions

type of an arc

pre
post
test
inhibitor
Others

pre
post

guard

No

time

No

Net composition

Explanation for net combination

Some tools allow to combine subnets into greater ones to be processed. We investigate there the potentially proposed functions.


Missing elements for net combination (if any)

Please put here the simple elements that do not appear to be predefined.

Element 1
Element 2
Element 3
Element 4

type of net composition

inclusion
hierarchy
modularity
Others

modularity

Element1 = "using a composition tool"

type of net coordination

place fusion
transition fusion
message passing (OOPN)
transaction (OOPN)
use of references (OOPN)
Others

place fusion
transition fusion

Element1 = "using a composition tool"


Questionnaire version 1.3 (29/02/2000) - contact if any problem