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International Symposium on Component-Based Software Engineering

CBSE 2010: Component-Based Software Engineering pp 150–165Cite as

Component Contracts in Eclipse - A Case Study

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 6092))

Abstract

We present the results of an experiment investigating component collaborations in the OSGi/Eclipse component model. The aim of the experiment is to demonstrate the benefits of using a formal contract language. For this purpose, we have associated more than 1000 component collaborations in OSGi/Eclipse with formal contracts extracted from component metadata and extension point documentation. We discuss several characteristics of these contracts, including contract complexity, and verification results obtained with these contracts. To our surprise, there are numerous contract violations. This indicates that the use of a formal contract language can significantly improve the quality of dynamically composed systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Massey University, New Zealand

    Jens Dietrich & Lucia Stewart

Authors
  1. Jens Dietrich
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  2. Lucia Stewart
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of ICT, John Street, Hawthorn, Swinburne University of Technology, 3122, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Lars Grunske

  2. Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization, Karslruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Am Fasanengarten 5, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Ralf Reussner

  3. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague, Malostranske namesti 25, 11800, Prague 1, Czech Republic

    Frantisek Plasil

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Dietrich, J., Stewart, L. (2010). Component Contracts in Eclipse - A Case Study. In: Grunske, L., Reussner, R., Plasil, F. (eds) Component-Based Software Engineering. CBSE 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6092. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13238-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13238-4_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-13237-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-13238-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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