The Topology Description Language TDL

H. Kuchen, F. Lücking, H. Stoltze

	   We present a declarative language, called TDL, which allows
	   to describe the topology of a loosely coupled multiprocessor
	   system elegantly, clearly, and concisely. TDL includes some
	   concepts known from programming languages such as loops,
	   conditionals, functions, recursion, and replication. Moreover,
	   TDL offers a set of basic operations suited for the generation
	   of graphs. The TDL compiler transforms a TDL script into
	   a format, which is accepted by the boot program of the
	   distributed operating system Helios running on transputer
	   systems.  Although, TDL has been designed for the description
	   of topologies of multiprocessor systems, it is essentially a
	   graph description language, which can be used in many other
	   contexts.  We give an informal explanation of TDL as well as
	   a formal description of its syntax and semantics.