ESL Reference

Welcome to the Elephant Specification Language (ESL) reference documentation. ESL is a formal language to write extremely structured system specifications. These pages explain the fundamental scientific concepts which form the foundations of ESL, the formal syntax, semantics, and the dependency derivation rules. It gets into the nitty gritty of things.

Tip

It is recommended to have read the System specifications in detail first, so you have an understanding of the landscape that ESL operates in, as well as Why ESL? for the reason for ESL.

User's introduction

If you're looking for an introduction from a user's perspective you are probably better served by the tutorials or how-to guides.

Note

This reference documentation as well as ESL itself is based on System Specification and design structuring methods for a lock product platform, PhD Thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology, Chapter 6, T. Wilschut, 2018.

It is expanded on and updated according to the ESL Enhancement proposals over time.

Overview

The language reference is split into two parts. The syntax and semantics of the various concepts of ESL are explained in the Syntax and semantics section. In the Dependency derivations section we discuss the mathematical rules that are used to derive dependencies between ESL concepts such as components, functions, and variables.