An approach to identifying causes of implied scenarios using unenforceable orders

Abstract

Context The implied scenarios are unexpected behaviors in the scenario specifications. Detecting and handling them is essential for the correctness of the scenario specifications. To handle such implied scenarios, identifying the causes of implied scenarios is also essential. Most recent researches focus on detecting those implied scenarios, themselves or limited causes of implied scenarios. Objective The purpose of this research is to provide an approach to detecting the causes of implied scenarios. Method The scenario specification is a set of events and a set of relative orders between the events, and enforces them for its implementation. Among the orders, a set of orders that cannot be inherently enforced is the unenforceable orders. Obviously, existence of unenforceable orders leads the implied scenarios. To obtain the unenforceable orders, we first provide a method to represent each of the specification and its implementation as a set of orders between events, called the causal order graph. Then, the differences between them are the unenforceable orders. Results Because the unenforceable orders consist of events and their order relation that are specified in the scenario specification, they can point out which part of the scenario specification should be considered to handle the implied scenarios. In addition, our approach supports the synchronous, asynchronous, and FIFO communication styles without the state explosion or heavy computational overhead. To validate our approach, we provide two case studies. Conclusions This approach helps a designer to effectively correct the scenario specification by identifying where to be fixed, especially in large cases and under the various communication styles.