Abstract

A method for formally specifying the generation of formal specifications from a CASE tools’ repository is described. The limitations of the approach are identified and summarised. An alternative approach is outlined that addresses an important limitation, that of the original approach being specific to one software development method. The use of a neutral representation to generalise the approach to other software development methods is outlined. A mechanism is outlined that uses the original approach and the neutral representation to enable an incremental approach to the adoption of formal specification techniques. The incremental adoption is supported by the default generation of a formal specification that allows the inclusion of hand written formal specification fragments in a controlled way. The work builds on the established area of method integration by thoroughly investigating one approach to integration and suggesting ways that this could be improved. The techniques presented go some way to providing a framework in which the use of formal specifications techniques can be adopted in an incremental manner.

Highlights

  • Formal specification techniques have developed considerably over the past two decades from being the products of pure research to practical techniques that are used by the software development community to specify and design dependable and correct software systems

  • This paper reports on an implementation of the generative approach

  • The generative approach has been shown to be a viable way of producing a formal specification from the products of an non-formal method [1, 22, 14] there are important aspects that need to be considered when an implementation is to be attempted [27] : the approach requires an expenditure of effort on the four stages

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Summary

Introduction

Formal specification techniques have developed considerably over the past two decades from being the products of pure research to practical techniques that are used by the software development community to specify and design dependable and correct software systems Their penetration has been most successful in the area of safety critical and mission critical systems where software failure is unacceptable. An approach taken by the research community to address this problem is to integrate formally based techniques with other non-formal 1 methods. An improved generative approach is proposed that address some of the negative aspects that have been identified.

A Generative Approach
Meta-model Descriptions
Static Property Models
Data Types
Attributes
Entities
Target Language Specification
Mapping Functions
Domains
An Analysis of a Generative Approach
Expenditure of Effort
The Generated Formal Specification
Structural Clarity
Traceability
Verbosity and Complexity
Use of Language Facilities
Summary
Improving the Generative Approach
The CASE Data Interchange Format
Managing the Use of Hand Written Fragments
Use of the GSM
Summary and Conclusions
Findings
Future Work
Full Text
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