An Introduction to Z

  • John Derrick
  • Eerke A. Boiten
Chapter

Abstract

This chapter introduces the Z specification notation. Z is a formal specification language. It is a language in that it provides a notation for describing the behaviour of a system, and it is formal in that it uses mathematics to do so. The mathematics is simple, consisting of first order predicate logic and set theory. However, based upon this, it offers a very elegant way of structuring the mathematics to provide a specification of the system under consideration. In this chapter we present the notations for logic, sets and relations, the schema notation and the schema calculus, leading to the definition of an abstract data type in the “states-and-operations” style, and the first example refinement.

Keywords

State Schema Predicate Logic Universal Quantification Operation Schema Abstract Data Type 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag London 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • John Derrick
    • 1
  • Eerke A. Boiten
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Computer ScienceUniversity of SheffieldSheffieldUK
  2. 2.School of ComputingUniversity of KentCanterburyUK

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