Access Graphs: Another View on Static Access Control for a Better Understanding and Use

Gilles Ardourel and Marianne Huchard, LIRMM, Montpellier, France

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Abstract

Encapsulation and modularity are supported by various static access control mechanisms that manage implementation hiding and de? ne interfaces adapted to di? erent client pro? les. Programming languages use a broad range of di? erent mechanisms, that are sometimes confusing and hard to predict when cumulatively applied. Furthermore, understanding and reasoning about access control independently from the programming languages is quite di? cult. We introduce a notation for static access control that we think is adapted for modeling, characterizing, evaluating, comparing and translating access control. Examples of practical applications of access graphs are given. This notation is supported by AGATE, a set of tools designed for access control handling.


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About the authors

Gilles Ardourel (ardourel@lirmm.fr) is about to complete his PhD Thesis at the LIRMM (Lab. CNRS & Science University of Montpellier) on the subject of access control modeling in Object-Oriented Languages . He is interested in language design and modeling. http://www.lirmm.fr/~ardourel

Marianne Huchard (huchard@lirmm.fr) is an assistant professor at the LIRMM (Lab. CNRS & Science University of Montpellier) since 1992. Her research interests include various aspects on class hierarchies (multiple inheritance, conflict resolution based on linearization methods, inheritance graph decomposition, algorithms for class hierarchy construction), and more recently access control mechanisms and exception modeling. http://www.lirmm.fr/~huchard


Cite this article as follows: Gilles Ardourel, Marianne Huchard: "Access Graphs: Another View on Static Access Control for a Better Understanding and Use", in Journal of Object Technology, vol. 1, no. 5, pp. 95-116. http://www.jot.fm/issues/issue 2002 11/article1