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Formalizing requirements with object models and temporal constraints

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Abstract

Flaws in requirements often have a negative impact on the subsequent development phases. In this paper, we present a novel approach for the formal representation and validation of requirements, which we used in an industrial project. The formalism allows us to represent and reason about object models and their temporal evolution. The key ingredients are class diagrams to represent classes of objects, their relationships and their attributes, fragments of first order logic to constrain the possible configurations of such objects, and temporal logic operators to deal with the dynamic evolution of the configurations. The approach to formal validation allows to check whether the requirements are consistent, if they are compatible with some scenarios, and if they guarantee some implicit properties. The validation procedure is based on satisfiability checking, which is carried out by means of finite instantiation and model checking techniques.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fondazione Bruno Kessler, IRST, Via Sommarive 18, 38123, Povo (TN), Italy

    Alessandro Cimatti, Marco Roveri, Angelo Susi & Stefano Tonetta

Authors
  1. Alessandro Cimatti
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  2. Marco Roveri
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  3. Angelo Susi
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  4. Stefano Tonetta
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefano Tonetta.

Additional information

Communicated by Antonio Cerone and Stefan Gruner.

S. Tonetta was supported by the Provincia Autonoma di Trento (project ANACONDA).

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Cimatti, A., Roveri, M., Susi, A. et al. Formalizing requirements with object models and temporal constraints. Softw Syst Model 10, 147–160 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-009-0130-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-009-0130-7

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