rCOS: A refinement calculus for object systems

This article presents a mathematical characterization of object-oriented concepts by defining an observation-oriented semantics for a relational objectoriented language with a rich variety of features including subtypes, visibility, inheritance, type casting, dynamic binding and polymorphism. The language is expressive enough for the specification of object-oriented designs and programs. We also propose a calculus based on this model to support both structural and behavioral refinement of object-oriented designs. We take the approach of the development of the design calculus based on the standard predicate logic in Hoare and He’s Unifying Theories of Programming (UTP). We also consider object reference in terms of object identity as values and mutually dependent methods

Theories and techniques of program modelling, design and verification

Abstract. This submission presents our understanding of the Grand Challenge and propose an agenda on how we will position our research to contribute to this world-wide collaborative research project

Programmiersprachen und Rechenkonzepte

Seit 1984 veranstaltet die GI-Fachgruppe "Programmiersprachen und Rechenkonzepte" regelmäßig im Frühjahr einen Workshop im Physikzentrum Bad Honnef. Das Treffen dient in erster Linie dem gegenseitigen Kennenlernen, dem Erfahrungsaustausch, der Diskussion und der Vertiefung gegenseitiger Kontakte. In diesem Forum werden Vorträge und Demonstrationen sowohl bereits abgeschlossener als auch noch laufender Arbeiten vorgestellt, unter anderem (aber nicht ausschließlich) zu Themen wie - Sprachen, Sprachparadigmen, - Korrektheit von Entwurf und Implementierung, -Werkzeuge, -Software-/Hardware-Architekturen, -Spezifikation, Entwurf, - Validierung, Verifikation, - Implementierung, Integration, - Sicherheit (Safety und Security), - eingebettete Systeme, - hardware-nahe Programmierung. In diesem Technischen Bericht sind einige der präsentierten Arbeiten zusammen gestellt

Integrating Refinement into Software Development Tools

AbstractIt is a challenge for automatic tool support to formal design by refinement transformations. In this paper, we bring this matter to the attention of the research community and discuss a component-based model transformational approach for integrating refinement into software development tools. Models, their consistency and correctness, in an object-oriented and component-based development process are defined in rCOS, that is a refinement calculus recently developed at UNU-IIST. Correctness preserving transformations between models are formalized and proved as refinement rules in rCOS. In this paper, we will discuss on how these transformations can be implemented in the relations language of Query/View/Transformation (QVT) standardized by OMG

An asynchronous distributed component model and its semantics

This paper is placed in the context of large scale distributed programming, providing a programming model based on asynchronous components. It focuses on the semantics of asynchronous invocations and component synchronisation. Our model is precise enough to enable the specification of a formal semantics. A variant of this model has been implemented, together with tools for managing components. This paper explains why we consider that our component model is efficient and provides a convenient programming model. We show how futures play a major role for such asynchronous components, and provide a reduction semantics for the component model. This reduction semantics has been specified in the Isabelle theorem prover, and will be used to prove properties on the component model and its implementations

Unifying Theories of Reactive Design Contracts

Design-by-contract is an important technique for model-based design in which a composite system is specified by a collection of contracts that specify the behavioural assumptions and guarantees of each component. In this paper, we describe a unifying theory for reactive design contracts that provides the basis for modelling and verification of reactive systems. We provide a language for expression and composition of contracts that is supported by a rich calculational theory. In contrast with other semantic models in the literature, our theory of contracts allow us to specify both the evolution of state variables and the permissible interactions with the environment. Moreover, our model of interaction is abstract, and supports, for instance, discrete time, continuous time, and hybrid computational models. Being based in Unifying Theories of Programming (UTP), our theory can be composed with further computational theories to support semantics for multi-paradigm languages. Practical reasoning support is provided via our proof framework, Isabelle/UTP, including a proof tactic that reduces a conjecture about a reactive program to three predicates, symbolically characterising its assumptions and guarantees about intermediate and final observations. This allows us to verify programs with a large or infinite state space. Our work advances the state-of-the-art in semantics for reactive languages, description of their contractual specifications, and compositional verification

Automating Verification of State Machines with Reactive Designs and Isabelle/UTP

State-machine based notations are ubiquitous in the description of component systems, particularly in the robotic domain. To ensure these systems are safe and predictable, formal verification techniques are important, and can be cost-effective if they are both automated and scalable. In this paper, we present a verification approach for a diagrammatic state machine language that utilises theorem proving and a denotational semantics based on Unifying Theories of Programming (UTP). We provide the necessary theory to underpin state machines (including induction theorems for iterative processes), mechanise an action language for states and transitions, and use these to formalise the semantics. We then describe the verification approach, which supports infinite state systems, and exemplify it with a fully automated deadlock-freedom check. The work has been mechanised in our proof tool, Isabelle/UTP, and so also illustrates the use of UTP to build practical verification tools.Comment: 18 pages, 16th Intl. Conf. on Formal Aspects of Component Software (FACS 2018), October 2018, Pohang, South Kore

Data-Dependency Formalism for Developing Peer-to-Peer Applications

Developing peer-to-peer (P2P) applications became increasingly important in software development. Nowadays, a large number of organizations from many different sectors and sizes depend more and more on collaboration between actors to perform their tasks. These P2P applications usually have a recursive behavior that many modeling approaches cannot describe and analyze (e.g. finite-state approaches). In this paper, we present an approach that combines component-based development with well-understood methods and techniques from the field of Attribute Grammars and Data-Flow Analysis in order to construct an abstract representation (i.e. Data-Dependency Graph) for P2P applications, and then perform data-flow analyzes on it. This approach embodies a formalism called DDF (Data-Dependency Formalism) to capture the behavior of P2P applications and construct their Data-Dependency Graphs. Various properties can be inferred and computed at the proposed level of data abstraction, including some properties that model checking cannot compute if the system presents a recursive behavior. As examples, we present two algorithms: one to resolve the deadlock problem and another for dominance analysis