From Object-Z Specification to Groovy Implementation

Abstract

So far, valuable researches have been conducted on mapping object-oriented specification notations, such as Object-Z, to different object-oriented programming languages, such as C++. However, the results of selecting JVM-based programming languages for mapping have not covered most of basic Object-Z structures. In this paper, the Groovy language, as a dynamic JVM-based language, is selected to overcome some of the existing limitations. As the main contribution, the rules required for mapping Object-Z specifications to executable Groovy code are introduced. The proposed rules cover notions such as multiple inheritance, inverse specification of functions, functions defined on generic definitions, and free type constructors. These notions have not been covered in previous methods for formal program development from object-oriented specifications, regardless of the selected formal specification language and target programming language. In addition, in this paper, the parallel composition construct is mapped to a parallel, executable code to improve the faithfulness of the final code to the initial specification. We also introduce a mapping rule for the class union construct, which has not yet been provided for any JVM-based language. Unlike previous works, instead of presenting the mapping rules in terms of natural languages, we present them in terms of some formal mapping rules.