Execution Semantics to Integrate Control Flow and Data Flow

摘要

In the visual languages community, the data-flow and control-flow models are often seen as antagonistic. However, data-flow formalisms are seldom purely data-flow based, and control-flow formalisms are seldom purely control-flow based. In this paper, we will describe the execution model of a formalism that completely integrates the two kinds of flows. This execution model, inspired by colored Petri Nets, is based on directed graphs, with both control-flow and data-flow edges, and with, respectively, control-flow and data-flow tokens flowing through these edges. Through an example, we define and explain the semantics of the combination of the two kinds of token flows.