Model-Based Diagnosis allows to determine why a correctly
designed system does not work as it was expected. In this paper, we propose
a methodology for software diagnosis which is based on the combination
of Design by Contract, Model-Based Diagnosis and Constraint
Programming. The contracts are specified by assertions embedded in the
source code. These assertions and an abstraction of the source code are
transformed into constraints, in order to obtain the model of the system.
Afterwards, a goal function is created for detecting which assertions or
source code statements are incorrect. The application of this methodology
is automatic and is based on Constraint Programming techniques.
The originality of this work stems from the transformation of contracts
and source code into constraints, in order to determine which assertions
and source code statements are not consistent with the specification.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología DPI2003-07146-C02-0
