A rewriting logic approach to the formal specification and verification of web applications

[EN] This paper develops a Rewriting Logic framework for the automatic specification and verification of Web applications that considers the critical aspects of concurrent Web interactions, browser navigation features (e.g., forward/back-ward navigation, page refresh, and new window/tab opening), and Web script evaluation. By encompassing the main features of the most popular Web scripting languages (e.g., PHP, ASP, and Java Servlets), our scripting language is powerful enough to model the dynamics of complex Web applications, where the interactions among Web servers and Web browsers are formalized through a landmark communicating protocol that abstracts HTTP. We provide a detailed characterization of browser actions via rewrite rules and show how our models can be naturally model-checked by using the Linear Temporal Logic of Rewriting (LTLR), which is a Linear Temporal Logic that is specifically designed for model-checking rewrite theories. The framework has been completely implemented in Maude, and we report on some successful experiments that we conducted using the Maude LTLR model-checker.This work has been partially supported by the EU (FEDER) and the Spanish MEC project ref. TIN2010-21062-C02-02, and by Generalitat Valenciana ref. PROMETE02011/052. This work was carried out during the tenure by Demis Ballis of an ERCIM "Alain Bensoussan" Postdoctoral Fellowship. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 246016. Daniel Romero was partially supported by FPI-MEC grant BES-2008-004860.Alpuente Frasnedo, M.; Ballis, D.; Romero, DO. (2014). A rewriting logic approach to the formal specification and verification of web applications. Science of Computer Programming. 81:79-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scico.2013.07.014S791078

Inspecting rewriting logic computations (in a parametric and stepwise way)

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54624-2_12Trace inspection is concerned with techniques that allow the trace content to be searched for specific components. This paper presents a rich and highly dynamic, parameterized technique for the trace inspection of Rewriting Logic theories that allows the non-deterministic execution of a given unconditional rewrite theory to be followed up in different ways. Using this technique, an analyst can browse, slice, filter, or search the traces as they come to life during the program execution. Starting from a selected state in the computation tree, the navigation of the trace is driven by a user-defined, inspection criterion that specifies the required exploration mode. By selecting different inspection criteria, one can automatically derive a family of practical algorithms such as program steppers and more sophisticated dynamic trace slicers that facilitate the dynamic detection of control and data dependencies across the computation tree. Our methodology, which is implemented in the Anima graphical tool, allows users to capture the impact of a given criterion thereby facilitating the detection of improper program behaviors.This work has been partially supported by the EU (FEDER), the Spanish MEC project ref. TIN2010-21062-C02-02, the Spanish MICINN complementary action ref. TIN2009-07495-E, and by Generalitat Valenciana ref. PROMETEO2011/052. This work was carried out during the tenure of D. Ballis’ ERCIM “Alain Bensoussan ”Postdoctoral Fellowship. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n. 246016. F. Frechina was supported by FPU-ME grant AP2010-5681.Alpuente Frasnedo, M.; Ballis, D.; Frechina, F.; Sapiña Sanchis, J. (2014). Inspecting rewriting logic computations (in a parametric and stepwise way). En Specification, algebra, and software: essays dedicated to Kokichi Futatsugi. Springer Verlag (Germany). 229-255. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54624-2_12S229255Alpuente, M., Ballis, D., Baggi, M., Falaschi, M.: A Fold/Unfold Transformation Framework for Rewrite Theories extended to CCT. In: Proc. PEPM 2010, pp. 43–52. ACM (2010)Alpuente, M., Ballis, D., Espert, J., Romero, D.: Model-checking Web Applications with Web-TLR. In: Bouajjani, A., Chin, W.-N. (eds.) ATVA 2010. LNCS, vol. 6252, pp. 341–346. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)Alpuente, M., Ballis, D., Espert, J., Romero, D.: Backward Trace Slicing for Rewriting Logic Theories. In: Bjørner, N., Sofronie-Stokkermans, V. (eds.) CADE 2011. LNCS, vol. 6803, pp. 34–48. 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Handbook of Logic in Computer Science, vol. I, pp. 1–112. Oxford University Press (1992)Martí-Oliet, N., Meseguer, J.: Rewriting Logic: Roadmap and Bibliography. Theoretical Computer Science 285(2), 121–154 (2002)Meseguer, J.: Conditional Rewriting Logic as a Unified Model of Concurrency. Theoretical Computer Science 96(1), 73–155 (1992)Meseguer, J.: The Temporal Logic of Rewriting: A Gentle Introduction. In: Degano, P., De Nicola, R., Meseguer, J. (eds.) Montanari Festschrift. LNCS, vol. 5065, pp. 354–382. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)Plotkin, G.D.: The Origins of Structural Operational Semantics. The Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming 60-61(1), 3–15 (2004)Riesco, A., Verdejo, A., Caballero, R., Martí-Oliet, N.: Declarative Debugging of Rewriting Logic Specifications. In: Corradini, A., Montanari, U. (eds.) WADT 2008. LNCS, vol. 5486, pp. 308–325. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)Riesco, A., Verdejo, A., Martí-Oliet, N.: Declarative Debugging of Missing Answers for Maude. In: Proc. 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