Transforming a declarative description of a packet processor

摘要

Methods are provided for transforming a declarative description of a processor of the packets of a communication protocol. A first declarative description of the packet processor is input. The first declarative description includes rules that include actions for manipulating the fields of the packets. Each rule includes one or more of the actions, and at least one of the rules includes multiple actions and a guard condition for enabling and disabling some of these actions. The first declarative description is transformed into a second declarative description of the packet processor. The second declarative description includes rules for manipulating the fields of the packets, and each rule corresponds to an action of a rule of the first declarative description. In addition, each individual action of each rule of the first declarative description corresponds to a rule of second declarative description that includes the individual action. The second declarative description is output.