ITU-T Z.103 PDF

Scope and objective

This Recommendation defines features of the Specification and Description Language that make the language practical to use. The features defined in this document cover the shorthand notation and annotation for the language, which is defined further in the other Recommendations of the ITU-T Z.100 series. Together with Recommendations [ITU-T Z.100], [ITU-T Z.101], [ITU-T Z.102], [ITU-T Z.104], [ITU-T Z.105], [ITU-T Z.106] and [ITU-T Z.107], this Recommendation forms a reference manual for the language.

Objective

The objective of this Recommendation is to define the features of the Specification and Description Language that are written using shorthand notation or are used to add annotation. The features defined in this Recommendation add to SDL-2010 features defined for Basic SDL-2010 or Comprehensive SDL-2010 or the data and action language in SDL-2010. The features do not rely on features defined for using ASN.1 or the use of the common interchange format.

Shorthand notation is a concrete grammar that is transformed by a model into further concrete grammar before the representation as abstract grammar is considered. The use of shorthand notation is important to make the use of the language practical, because the shorthand is easy to read, write and understand as well as being concise. A construct written using the concrete grammar defined by this Recommendation is allowed to contain more than one shorthand; in some cases a shorthand is transformed through one (or more) other shorthand forms before a concrete grammar that does not contain any shorthand is obtained from which the abstract grammar is determined. Where the order of transformation is important, this is defined.

An annotation adds information to a specification in the language that does not change the formal meaning of the specification. While such information does not change the formal meaning as far as the Specification and Description Language is concerned, annotations are important to aid understanding of the purpose and intention of a specification or how an SDL-2010 specification interacts with or is interpreted by another language (such as the Message Sequence Chart language).

Application

This Recommendation is part of the reference manual for the Specification and Description Language. The part of the language defined by this Recommendation includes additional concrete syntax for shorthand notations and Model sections for the shorthand. It also includes the concrete syntax for additional annotation not included Basic SDL-2010 or Comprehensive SDL-2010 or the data and action language in SDL-2010. The part of the language defined in this Recommendation is required to make the use of the language practical.