A specification language design for the Java Modeling Language (JML) using Java 5 annotations

Design by contract specification languages help programmers write their intentions for a piece of code in a formal mathematical language. Most programming languages do not have built-in syntax for such specifications, so many design by contract languages place specifications in comments. The Java Modeling Language (JML) is one such specification language for Java that uses comments to specify contracts. However, starting with version 5, Java has introduced annotations, a syntactical structure to place metadata in various places in the code. This thesis proposes an initial design to writing JML contracts in the Java 5 annotation syntax and evaluates several criteria in the areas of specification languages and Java language design: whether these annotations are expressive enough to take advantage of annotation simplicity and tool support, and whether the annotation syntax is expressive enough to support handling a large specification language such as JML

A Specification Language Design for the Java Modeling Language (JML) Using Java 5 Annotations

Design by contract specification languages help programmers write their intentions for a piece of code in a formal mathematical language. Most programming languages do not have built-in syntax for such specifications, so many design by contract languages place specifications in comments. The Java Modeling Language (JML) is one such specification language for Java that uses comments to specify contracts. However, starting with version 5, Java has introduced annotations, a syntactical structure to place metadata in various places in the code. This thesis proposes an initial design to writing JML contracts in the Java 5 annotation syntax and evaluates several criteria in the areas of specification languages and Java language design: whether these annotations are expressive enough to take advantage of annotation simplicity and tool support, and whether the annotation syntax is expressive enough to support handling a large specification language such as JML

Adapting the Java Modeling Language for Java 5 Annotations

The Java Modeling Language (JML) is a formal specification language for Java that allows to express intended behavior through assertions. Currently, users must embed these assertions in Java comments, which complicates parsing and hinders tool support, leading to poor usability. This paper describes a set of proposed Java 5 annotations which reflect current JML assertions and provides for better tool support. We consider three alternative designs for such annotations and explain why the chosen design is preferred. This syntax is designed to support both a design-by-contract subset of JML, and to be extensible to the full language. We demonstrate that by building two tools: Modern Jass, which provides almost-native support for design by contract, and a prototype that works with a much larger set of JML

Formal specification with JML

This text is a general, self contained, and tool independent introduction into the Java Modeling Language, JML. It is a preview of a chapter planned to appear in a book about the KeY approach and tool to the verification of Java software. JML is the dominating starting point of KeY style Java verification. However, this paper does not in any way depend on any tool nor verification methodology. Other chapters in this book talk about the usage of JML in KeY style verification. Here, we only refer to KeY in very few places, without relying on it. This introduction is written for all readers with an interest in formal specification of software in general, and anyone who wants to learn about the JML approach to specification in particular. The authors appreciate any comments or questions that help to improve the text

A Simple and Practical Approach to Unit Testing: The JML and JUnit Way

Writing unit test code is labor-intensive, hence it is often not done as an integral part of programming. However, unit testing is a practical approach to increasing the correctness and quality of software; for example, the Extreme Programming approach relies on frequent unit testing. In this paper we present a new approach that makes writing unit tests easier. It uses a formal specification language\u27s runtime assertion checker to decide whether methods are working correctly, thus automating the writing of unit test oracles. These oracles can be easily combined with hand-written test data. Instead of writing testing code, the programmer writes formal specifications (e.g., pre- and postconditions). This makes the programmer\u27s task easier, because specifications are more concise and abstract than the equivalent test code, and hence more readable and maintainable. Furthermore, by using specifications in testing, specification errors are quickly discovered, so the specifications are more likely to provide useful documentation and inputs to other tools. We have implemented this idea using the Java Modeling Language (JML) and the JUnit testing framework, but the approach could be easily implemented with other combinations of formal specification languages and unit test tools

A Simple and Practical Approach to Unit Testing: The JML and JUnit Way

Writing unit test code is labor-intensive, hence it is often not done as an integral part of programming. However, unit testing is a practical approach to increasing the correctness and quality of software; for example, the Extreme Programming approach relies on frequent unit testing. In this paper we present a new approach that makes writing unit tests easier. It uses a formal specification language\u27s runtime assertion checker to decide whether methods are working correctly, thus automating the writing of unit test oracles. These oracles can be easily combined with hand-written test data. Instead of writing testing code, the programmer writes formal specifications (e.g., pre- and postconditions). This makes the programmer\u27s task easier, because specifications are more concise and abstract than the equivalent test code, and hence more readable and maintainable. Furthermore, by using specifications in testing, specification errors are quickly discovered, so the specifications are more likely to provide useful documentation and inputs to other tools. We have implemented this idea using the Java Modeling Language (JML) and the JUnit testing framework, but the approach could be easily implemented with other combinations of formal specification languages and unit test tools

SPEST - A TOOL FOR SPECIFICATION-BASED TESTING

This thesis presents a tool for SPEcification based teSTing (SPEST). SPEST is designed to use well known practices for automated black-box testing to reduce the burden of testing on developers. The tool uses a simple formal specification language to generate highly-readable unit tests that embody best practices for thorough software testing. Because the specification language used to generate the assertions about the code can be compiled, it can also be used to ensure that documentation describing the code is maintained during development and refactoring. The utility and effectiveness of SPEST were validated through several exper- iments conducted with students in undergraduate software engineering classes. The first experiment compared the understandability and efficiency of SPEST generated tests against student written tests based on the Java Modeling Lan- guage (JML)[25] specifications. JML is a widely used language for behavior program specification. A second experiment evaluated readability through a sur- vey comparing SPEST generated tests against tests written by well established software developers. The results from the experiments showed that SPEST’s specification language is at least understandable as JML, SPEST’s specification language is more readable than JML, and strongly suggest that SPEST is capable of reducing the effort required to produce effective tests

The JML and JUnit Way of Unit Testing and its Implementation

Writing unit test code is labor-intensive, hence it is often not done as an integral part of programming. However, unit testing is a practical approach to increasing the correctness and quality of software; for example, Extreme Programming relies on frequent unit testing. In this paper we present a new approach that makes writing unit tests easier. It uses a formal specification language\u27s runtime assertion checker to decide whether methods are working correctly; thus code to decide whether tests pass or fail is automatically produced from specifications. Our tool combines this testing code with hand-written test data to execute tests. Therefore, instead of writing testing code, the programmer writes formal specifications (e.g., pre- and postconditions). This makes the programmer\u27s task easier, because specifications are more concise and abstract than the equivalent test code, and hence more readable and maintainable. Furthermore, by using specifications in testing, specification errors are quickly discovered, so the specifications are more likely to provide useful documentation and inputs to other tools. In this paper we describe an implementation using the Java Modeling Language (JML) and the JUnit testing framework, but the approach could be easily implemented with other combinations of formal specification languages and unit testing tools

OpenJML: Software verification for Java 7 using JML, OpenJDK, and Eclipse

OpenJML is a tool for checking code and specifications of Java programs. We describe our experience building the tool on the foundation of JML, OpenJDK and Eclipse, as well as on many advances in specification-based software verification. The implementation demonstrates the value of integrating specification tools directly in the software development IDE and in automating as many tasks as possible. The tool, though still in progress, has now been used for several college-level courses on software specification and verification and for small-scale studies on existing Java programs.Comment: In Proceedings F-IDE 2014, arXiv:1404.578