LOTOSphere:software development with LOTOS

LOTOS (Language Of Temporal Ordering Specification) became an international standard in 1989, although application of preliminary versions of the language to communication services and protocols of the ISO/OSI family dates back to 1984. This history of the use of LOTOS made it apparent that more advantages than the pure production of standard reference documents were to be expected from the use of such formal description techniques. LOTOSphere: Software Development with LOTOS describes in depth a five year project that moved LOTOS out of the ISO tower into software engineering practice. LOTOS became a vehicle for efficient, yet formally based industrial software specification, design, verification, implementation and testing. LOTOSphere: Software Development with LOTOS is divided into six parts. The first introduces the reader to LOTOS and the project LOTOSphere. The five remaining each treat an important part of the software development life cycle using LOTOS. This is the first book to give a comprehensive treatment of the use of these formal description techniques in a software engineering environment. It will thus be a valuable reference for researchers and software developers and can also be used as a text for an advanced course on the subject

Modular Feature Specification

CRESS (CHISEL Representation Employing Systematic Specification) is a notation and set of tools for graphical specification and analysis of features. It is applicable wherever a system consists of base functionality to which are added optionally selected features. The CRESS notation is introduced for basic diagrams, feature diagrams, and rules governing their behaviour. Although telephony is used to illustrate the approach, CRESS is not limited to this domain. The structure and use of the portable CRESS toolset is explained. CRESS can generate code for a variety of target languages. The strategy for translation to LOTOS is presented, along with some techniques for analysing the generated specifications

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

Modelling SIP Services using CRESS

CRESS (CHISEL Representation Employing Systematic Specification) is a notation and set of tools for graphical specification and analysis of services. It is applicable wherever a system consists of base functionality to which may be added selected services. The CRESS notation is introduced for root diagrams, service diagrams, and rules governing their behaviour. It is shown how CRESS can represent services in SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). For analysis, service diagrams can be automatically translated into LOTOS (Language Of Temporal Ordering Specification) or SDL (Specification and Description Language). For scripting, translation is into CPL (Call Processing Language) or CGI (Common Gateway Interface). The structure of the portable CRESS toolset is explained

Mixing formal specifications using ICL (interconnection language)

There is an increasing need and desire to develop systems by combining components that are written in different languages and/or run on different kinds of machines. Success largely depends on the ability of their components to communicate and work together despite their differing backgrounds. This thesis addresses the problem of mixing two formal specification languages, SDL and LOTOS. Various approaches to mixing specification languages are examined including the SPECS approach which is presented in more detail. A unique feature of the SPECS approach is the support of multiple specification languages, including the ability to mix specifications languages within a given system design. This area of research investigates the SPECS specific mixing language ICL (Interconnection Language). The thesis looks at two formal languages, one of an asynchronous nature (SDL) and one of a synchronous nature (LOTOS), which can be combined using the Interconnection Language. Also a set of rules are given to produce this formal mixing specification from less formal descriptions. These rules use a range of informal representations and rigorous models of the required system to produce of the ICL specification. An application of these rules is presented. This research work was carried out as part of DCU’s contribution to the SPECS (Specification and Programming Environment for Communication Software) project, part of the RACE program of the EC. SPECS’s aim was to, as much as possible, automate the software development process by using formal languages. An overview of the SPECS project is presented in chapter 1 of this thesis