Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An algebraic theory for web service contracts

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Formal Aspects of Computing

Abstract

We study the foundations of Web service technologies for connecting abstract and concrete service definitions and for discovering services according to their observable behavior. We pursue this study addressing a subset of BPEL activities that include concurrency constructs. We present a formal semantics—called compliance preorder—of this subset of BPEL and we define a behavioral type discipline that guarantees the correctness of client-server interactions. The types of our discipline, called contracts, are De Nicola and Hennessy tau-less, finite-state CCS processes. We show that contracts are BPEL normal forms according to the compliance preorder and that the compliance preorder does coincide with a well-known equivalence in concurrency theory, the must-testing preorder. The compliace preorder is not fully adequate for discovering Web services though, since it does not support width and depth extensions of Web services. To address this issue, we propose a sound generalization of the compliance preorder, called subcontract relation, that admits a notion of principal service contract—the dual contract—compliant with a given client contract and that exhibits good precongruence properties when choreographies of Web services are considered.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Abramsky S (1990) The lazy lambda calculus. In: Proceedings of research topics in functional programming, Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, pp 65–116

  2. Aceto L, Ingolfsdottir A, Srba J (2011) The algoritmics of bisimilarity. In: Sangiorgi D, Rutten J (eds) Advanced topics in bisimulation and coinduction of Cambridge tracts in theoretical computer science, chapter 3, vol 52. Cambridge University Press, pp 100–172

  3. Alves A et al. (2007) Web Services Business Process Execution Language Version 2.0. http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsbpel/2.0/CS01/wsbpel-v2.0-CS01.html

  4. Banerji A, Bartolini C, Beringer D, Chopella V et al. (2002) Web Services Conversation Language (WSCL) 1.0. http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-wscl10-20020314

  5. Barbanera F, Capecchi S, de’Liguoro U (2009) Typing asymmetric client-server interaction. In: Proceedings of fundamentals of software engineering, third IPM international conference, FSEN 2009, Kish Island, Iran, April 15–17, 2009, revised selected papers, of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5961. Springer, pp 97–112

  6. Benzaken V, Castagna G, Frisch A (2003) CDuce: an XML-centric general-purpose language. SIGPLAN Not 38(9): 51–63

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bernardi G (2013) Behavioural Equivalences for Web Services. PhD thesis, University of Dublin

  8. Busi N, Gabbrielli M, Zavattaro G (2009) On the expressive power of recursion, replication and iteration in process calculi. Math Struct Comput Sci 19(6): 1191–1222

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Bernardi G, Hennessy M (2012) Modelling session types using contracts. In: Proceedings of the 27th annual ACM symposium on applied computing, SAC ’12, ACM, New York, pp 1941–1946

  10. Brookes SD, Hoare CAR, Roscoe AW (1984) A theory of communicating sequential processes. J ACM 31(3): 560–599

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Beringer D, Kuno H, Lemon M (2001) Using WSCL in a UDDI Registry 1.0, UDDI Working draft best practices document. http://xml.coverpages.org/HP-UDDI-wscl-5-16-01.pdf

  12. Bravetti M, Lanese I, Zavattaro G (2009) Contract-driven implementation of choreographies. In: Proceedings of trustworthy global computing, lecture notes in computer science, vol. 5474. Springer, pp 1–18

  13. Bugliesi M, Macedonio D, Pino L, Rossi S (2009) Compliance preorders for web services. In: Proceedings of WS-FM, lecture notes in computer science, vol. 6194. Springer, pp 76–91

  14. Boreale M, Sangiorgi D (1998) Bisimulation in name-passing calculi without matching. In: Proceedings of logic in computer science, 1998. thirteenth annual IEEE Symposium, pp 165–175

  15. Bravetti M, Zavattaro G (2007) Towards a unifying theory for choreography conformance and contract compliance. In Proceedings of SC 2007, LNCS, vol 4829. Springer, pp 34–50

  16. Bravetti M, Zavattaro G (2008) A foundational theory of contracts for multi-party service composition. Fundam Inform 89(4): 451–478

    Google Scholar 

  17. Bravetti M, Zavattaro G (2009) Contract-based discovery and composition of web services. In: Proceedings of SFM’09, lecture notes in computer science, vol 5569. Springer, pp 261–295

  18. Bravetti M, Zavattaro G (2009) A theory of contracts for strong service compliance. Math Struct Comput Sci 19: 601–638

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Carpineti S, Castagna G, Laneve C, Padovani L (2006) A formal account of contracts for web services. In: Proceedings of WS-FM, 3rd international workshop on web services and formal methods, in LNCS, vol 4184. Springer, pp 148–162

  20. Christensen E, Curbera F, Meredith G, Weerawarana S (2001) Web services description language (WSDL) 1.1. http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-wsdl-20010315

  21. Castagna G, Gesbert N, Padovani L (2009) A theory of contracts for web services. ACM Trans Program Lang Syst 31(5): 19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Carbone M, Honda K, Yoshida N (2007) Structured communication-centered programming for web services. In: Proceedings of 16th European symposium on programming, (ESOP’07), LNCS 4421. Springer, pp 2–17

  23. Carpineti S, Laneve C, Padovani L (2009) PiDuce: A project for experimenting web services technologies. Sci Comput Program 74(10): 777–811

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Di Cosmo R (1995) Isomorphisms of types: from Lambda calculus to information retrieval and language desig. Birkhauser, Basel. ISBN-0-8176-3763-X

  25. Castagna G, Padovani L (2009) Contracts for mobile processes. In: Proceedings of the 20th international conference on concurrency theory (CONCUR’09), of LNCS, vol 5710. Springer, pp 211–228

  26. Cleaveland R, Parrow J, Steffen B (1993) The concurrency workbench: a semantics-based tool for the verification of concurrent systems. ACM Trans Program Lang Syst 15(1): 36–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Chaki S, Rajamani SK, Rehof J (2002) Types as models: model checking message-passing programs. SIGPLAN Not 37(1): 45–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. De Nicola R, Hennessy M (1984) Testing equivalences for processes. Theor Comput Sci 34: 83–133

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. De Nicola R, Hennessy M (1987) CCS without τ’s. In: Proceedings of TAPSOFT’87/CAAP’87, LNCS 249. Springer, pp 138–152

  30. Fournet C, Laneve C (2001) Bisimulations in the join-calculus. Theor Comput Sci 266(1–2): 569–603

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Gay S, Hole M (2005) Subtyping for session types in the π-calculus. Acta Informatica 42(2–3): 191–225

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Hennessy M (1988) Algebraic theory of processes: foundation of computing. MIT Press

  33. Honda K (1993) Types for dyadic interaction. In: Proceedings of CONCUR’93, LNCS 715. Springer, pp 509–523

  34. Hosoya H, Pierce BC (2003) XDuce: a statically typed XML processing language. ACM Trans Internet Tech 3(2): 117–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Honda K, Vasconcelos VT, Kubo M (1998) Language primitives and type disciplines for structured communication-based programming. In: Proceedings of ESOP’98, LNCS 1381. Springer, New York, pp 122–138

  36. Honda K, Yoshida N, Carbone M (2008) Multiparty asynchronous session types. In: Proceedings of POPL 2008. ACM, pp 273–284

  37. Igarashi A, Kobayashi N (2001) A generic type system for the pi-calculus. In: Proceedings of POPL 2001, ACM, pp 128–141

  38. Kavantzas N, Burdett D, Ritzinger G, Fletcher T, Lafon Y, Barreto C (2005) Web services choreography description language 1.0. http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/CR-ws-cdl-10-20051109/

  39. Laneve C, Padovani L (2007) The must preorder revisited: an algebraic theory for web services contracts. In: Proceedings of CONCUR’07, LNCS 4703. Springer, pp 212–225

  40. Laneve C, Padovani L (2008) The pairing of contracts and session types. In: Proceedings of concurrency, graphs and models, lecture notes in computer science, vol. 5065. Springer, New York, pp 681–700

  41. Laneve C, Padovani L (2013) An algebraic theory for web service contracts. In: Proceedings of 10th international conference on integrated formal methods, LNCS, vol. 7940. Springer, New York, pp 301–315

  42. Milner R (1982) A calculus of communicating systems. Springer

  43. Milner R (1989) Communication and concurrency. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ

  44. Nielson HR, Nielson F (1994) Higher-order concurrent programs with finite communication topology (extended abstract). In: Proceedings of POPL’94. ACM Press, New York, pp 84–97

  45. Ouyang C, Verbeek E, van der Aalst WMP, Breutel S, Dumas M, ter Hofstede AHM (2007) Formal semantics and analysis of control flow in ws-bpel. Sci Comput Program 67(2–3):162–198

  46. Padovani L (2008) Contract-directed synthesis of simple orchestrators. In: Proceedings of the 19th international conference on concurrency theory (CONCUR’08), LNCS, vol 5201. Springer, New York, pp 131–146

  47. Padovani L (2009) Contract-based discovery and adaptation of web services, LNCS, vol 5569. Springer, New York, pp 213–260

  48. Padovani L (2010) Contract-based discovery of web services modulo simple orchestrators. Theor Comput Sci 411: 3328–3347

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Padovani L (2013) Fair subtyping for open session types. In: Proceedings of 40th international colloquium on automata, languages, and programming, part II, LNCS, vol 7966. Springer, New York, pp 373–384

  50. Padovani L (2014) Fair subtyping for multi-party session types. Math Struct Comput Sci, pp 1–41

  51. Pitts AM, Stark IDB (1993) Observable properties of higher order functions that dynamically create local names, or what’s new? In: Proceedings of 18th international symposium on mathematical foundations of computer science, lecture notes in computer science, vol 711. Springer, New York, pp 122–141

  52. Rittri M (1993) Retrieving library functions by unifying types modulo linear isomorphism. In: Proceedings of RAIRO theoretical informatics and applications 27(6): 523–540

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica - Scienza e Ingegneria, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Cosimo Laneve

  2. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Torino, Turin, Italy

    Luca Padovani

Authors
  1. Cosimo Laneve
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Luca Padovani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cosimo Laneve.

Additional information

Einar Broch Johnsen, Luigia Petre, and Michael Butler

The research reported in this paper was partially funded by the EU FP7 610582 project called ENVISAGE.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Laneve, C., Padovani, L. An algebraic theory for web service contracts. Form Asp Comp 27, 613–640 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00165-015-0334-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00165-015-0334-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation