Frame conditions in symbolic representations of UML/OCL models

Abstract

Verification and validation of UML/OCL models is a crucial task in the design of complex software/hardware systems. The behavior in those models is expressed in terms of operations with pre- and postconditions. These, however, are often not precise enough to describe what may or may not be modified in a transition between two system states. This frame problem is commonly addressed by providing additional constraints in terms of so-called frame conditions and has already been considered in different research areas in the last decades - except for UML/OCL where corresponding approaches have been investigated only recently. Besides that, several approaches for the verification of the behavior specified in UML/OCL models have been proposed. They rely on a symbolic representation of all possible system states and transitions between them. But here, frame conditions have not been considered yet - a significant drawback for the underlying verification approaches. In this paper, we describe how to integrate frame conditions to symbolic representations. This enables designers to verify the behavior of UML/OCL models while, at the same time, respecting the given frame conditions.