scope:

The purpose of recommending the Specification and Description Language is to provide a language for unambiguous specification and description of the behaviour of telecommunication systems. The specifications and descriptions using the language are intended to be formal in the sense that it is possible to analyse and interpret them unambiguously.

The terms specification and description are used with the following meaning:

a) a specification of a system is the description of its required behaviour; and

b) a description of a system is the description of its actual behaviour (that is, its implementation).

A system specification, in a broad sense, is the specification of both the behaviour and a set of general parameters of the system. However, the Specification and Description Language is intended to specify the behavioural aspects of a system; the general parameters describing properties like capacity and weight have to be described using different techniques.

This Recommendation gives an overview of the series of Recommendations that define SDL-2010, defines terms, conventions including meta-languages, tool compliance and the basis of data for SDL-2010.

NOTE − Since there is no distinction between use for specification and its use for description, the term specification is used in the SDL-2010 Recommendations for both required behaviour and actual behaviour.