39,024 research outputs found
Requirements traceability in model-driven development: Applying model and transformation conformance
The variety of design artifacts (models) produced in a model-driven design process results in an intricate relationship between requirements and the various models. This paper proposes a methodological framework that simplifies management of this relationship, which helps in assessing the quality of models, realizations and transformation specifications. Our framework is a basis for understanding requirements traceability in model-driven development, as well as for the design of tools that support requirements traceability in model-driven development processes. We propose a notion of conformance between application models which reduces the effort needed for assessment activities. We discuss how this notion of conformance can be integrated with model transformations
Generating natural language specifications from UML class diagrams
Early phases of software development are known to be problematic, difficult to manage and errors occurring during these phases are expensive to correct. Many systems have been developed to aid the transition from informal Natural Language requirements to semistructured or formal specifications. Furthermore, consistency checking is seen by many software engineers as the solution to reduce the number of errors occurring during the software development life cycle and allow early verification and validation of software systems. However, this is confined to the models developed during analysis and design and fails to include the early Natural Language requirements. This excludes proper user involvement and creates a gap between the original requirements and the updated and modified models and implementations of the system. To improve this process, we propose a system that generates Natural Language specifications from UML class diagrams. We first investigate the variation of the input language used in naming the components of a class diagram based on the study of a large number of examples from the literature and then develop rules for removing ambiguities in the subset of Natural Language used within UML. We use WordNet,a linguistic ontology, to disambiguate the lexical structures of the UML string names and generate semantically sound sentences. Our system is developed in Java and is tested on an independent though academic case study
JWalk: a tool for lazy, systematic testing of java classes by design introspection and user interaction
Popular software testing tools, such as JUnit, allow frequent retesting of modified code; yet the manually created test scripts are often seriously incomplete. A unit-testing tool called JWalk has therefore been developed to address the need for systematic unit testing within the context of agile methods. The tool operates directly on the compiled code for Java classes and uses a new lazy method for inducing the changing design of a class on the fly. This is achieved partly through introspection, using Java’s reflection capability, and partly through interaction with the user, constructing and saving test oracles on the fly. Predictive rules reduce the number of oracle values that must be confirmed by the tester. Without human intervention, JWalk performs bounded exhaustive exploration of the class’s method protocols and may be directed to explore the space of algebraic constructions, or the intended design state-space of the tested class. With some human interaction, JWalk performs up to the equivalent of fully automated state-based testing, from a specification that was acquired incrementally
Declarative Specification
Deriving formal specifications from informal requirements is extremely difficult since one has to overcome the conceptual gap between an application domain and the domain of formal specification methods. To reduce this gap we introduce application-specific specification languages, i.e., graphical and textual notations that can be unambiguously mapped to formal specifications in a logic language. We describe a number of realised approaches based on this idea, and evaluate them with respect to their domain specificity vs. generalit
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Using formal methods to support testing
Formal methods and testing are two important approaches that assist in the development of high quality software. While traditionally these approaches have been seen as rivals, in recent
years a new consensus has developed in which they are seen as complementary. This article reviews the state of the art regarding ways in which the presence of a formal specification can be used to assist testing
Formalization and Validation of Safety-Critical Requirements
The validation of requirements is a fundamental step in the development
process of safety-critical systems. In safety critical applications such as
aerospace, avionics and railways, the use of formal methods is of paramount
importance both for requirements and for design validation. Nevertheless, while
for the verification of the design, many formal techniques have been conceived
and applied, the research on formal methods for requirements validation is not
yet mature. The main obstacles are that, on the one hand, the correctness of
requirements is not formally defined; on the other hand that the formalization
and the validation of the requirements usually demands a strong involvement of
domain experts. We report on a methodology and a series of techniques that we
developed for the formalization and validation of high-level requirements for
safety-critical applications. The main ingredients are a very expressive formal
language and automatic satisfiability procedures. The language combines
first-order, temporal, and hybrid logic. The satisfiability procedures are
based on model checking and satisfiability modulo theory. We applied this
technology within an industrial project to the validation of railways
requirements
SPEEDY: An Eclipse-based IDE for invariant inference
SPEEDY is an Eclipse-based IDE for exploring techniques that assist users in
generating correct specifications, particularly including invariant inference
algorithms and tools. It integrates with several back-end tools that propose
invariants and will incorporate published algorithms for inferring object and
loop invariants. Though the architecture is language-neutral, current SPEEDY
targets C programs. Building and using SPEEDY has confirmed earlier experience
demonstrating the importance of showing and editing specifications in the IDEs
that developers customarily use, automating as much of the production and
checking of specifications as possible, and showing counterexample information
directly in the source code editing environment. As in previous work,
automation of specification checking is provided by back-end SMT solvers.
However, reducing the effort demanded of software developers using formal
methods also requires a GUI design that guides users in writing, reviewing, and
correcting specifications and automates specification inference.Comment: In Proceedings F-IDE 2014, arXiv:1404.578
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