Specification and verification of data-driven web services

Abstract

We study data-driven Web services provided by Web sites interacting with users or applications. The Web site can access an underlying database, as well as state information updated as the interaction progresses, and receives user input. The structure and contents of Web pages, as well as the actions to be taken, are determined dynamically by querying the underlying database as well as the state and inputs. The properties to be verified concern the sequences of events (inputs, states, and actions) resulting from the interaction, and are expressed in linear or branching-time temporal logics. The results establish under what conditions automatic verification of such properties is possible and provide the complexity of verification. This brings into play a mix of techniques from logic and automatic verification.