AN EXECUTABLE SPECIFICATION FORMALISM REPRESENTING ABSTRACT DATA TYPES

It has been proved to be very useful and necessary to give formal specifications of software systems to be developed. The specifications should help to avoid the necessity of creating prototypes by offering direct executability. A useful specification language aiming the description of abstract data types - while maintaining abstractness - should also support the representation of states of objects, as well as support the transformation of declarative specifications into efficiently executable code. The present paper is intended to give an informal description of a specification language aimed to offer the features discussed above. Although the development of the language has mainly been motivated by the object-oriented language (OMOHUNDRO, 1993), it is intended to function as a specification formalism at a much broader field

XML-based formal specification comprehension

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Specification and implementation of the Larch shared language

This project aims to prototype formal specification in Larch. The motivation for looking at formal specifications stems from an appreciation of the problem outlined above, frustration with current methods, and a desire to practise what is preached. The aim is to implement a formal specification language, to write a non-trivial specification and to employ formal methods of specification during software development. As a result, one should have a thorough understanding of a formal specification language, and the practical implications of using it as a basis for formal methods

Formally-based tools and techniques for human-computer dialogues

With ever cheaper and more powerful technology. the proliferation of computer systems, and higher expectations of their users, the user interface is now seen as a crucial part of any interactive system. As the designers and users of interactive software have found, though, it can be both difficult and costly to create good interactive software. It is therefore appropriate to look at ways of "engineering" the interface as well as the application. which we choose to do by using the software engineering techniques of specification and prototyping. Formally specifying the user interface allows the designer to reason about its properties in the light of the many guidelines on the subject. Early availability of prototypes of the user interface allows the designer to experiment with alternative options and to elicit feedback from potential users. This thesis presents tools and techniques (collectively called SPI for specifying and prototyping the dialogues between an interactive system and its users. They are based on a formal specification and rapid prototyping method and notation called me too. and were originally designed as an extension to me too. They have also been implemented under UNIX*. thus enabling a transition from the formal specification to its implementation. *UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratorie

Tools and verification techniques for integrated formal methods

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH