Specifying and verifying UML activity diagrams via graph transformation

1 Dipartimento di Informatica, Universit`a Ca ' Foscari di Venezia, Italy 2 Dipartimento di Informatica, Universit`a di Pisa, Ital

Graph-based software specification and verification

The (in)correct functioning of many software systems heavily influences how\ud we qualify our daily lives. Software companies as well as academic computer\ud science research groups spend much effort on applying and developing techniques for improving the correctness of software systems. In this dissertation\ud we focus on using and developing graph-based techniques to specify and verify\ud the behaviour of software systems in general, and object-oriented systems more\ud specifically. We elaborate on two ways to improve the correctness (and thereby\ud the quality) of such systems.\ud Firstly, we investigate the potential of using the graph transformation tech-\ud nique to formally specify the dynamic semantics of (object-oriented) program-\ud ming languages. Those semantics are typically specified in natural language.\ud Such specifications are often hard to understand or even ambiguous. We show\ud how the graph transformation framework provides formal and intuitive means\ud for their specification.\ud Secondly, we develop techniques to verify systems of which the behaviour is\ud specified as graph production systems. For the verification of such systems, we\ud introduce an algorithm that combines a well-known on-the-\ud y model checking\ud algorithm with ideas from bounded model checking. One of the main prob-\ud lems of model checking is the state-explosion problem. This problem is often\ud tackled using partial order reduction techniques. Unfortunately, many such\ud techniques are based on assumptions that do not hold for graph production sys-\ud tems. Therefore, we develop a new dynamic partial order reduction algorithm\ud based on selecting so-called probe sets and prove its correctness.\ud Most of the techniques developed in this dissertation have been implemented\ud in the graph transformation tool GROOVE

The Meaning of UML Models

The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is intended to express complex ideas in an intuitive and easily understood way. It is important because it is widely used in software engineering and other disciplines. Although an official definition document exists, there is much debate over the precise meaning of UML models. ¶ In response, the academic community have put forward many different proposals for formalising UML, but it is not at all obvious how to decide between them. Indeed, given that UML practitioners are inclined to reject formalisms as non-intuitive, it is not even obvious that the definition should be “formal” at all. Rather than searching for yet another formalisation of UML, our main aim is to determine what would constitute a good definition of UML. ¶ The first chapter sets the UML definition problem in a broad context, relating it to work in logic and the philosophy of science. ..