Prescriptions: A Language for Describing Software Configurations

ID
TR-94-18
Authors
Jim Thornton
Publishing date
June 1994
Length
44 pages
Abstract
Automation of software configuration management is an important practical problem. Any automated tool must work from some specifications of correct or desired configurations. This report introduces a language for describing acceptable configurations of common systems, so that automated management is possible. The proposed language is declarative, while at the same time there are efficient algorithms for modifying a system to conform to a specification in many cases of practical importance.