Abstract
This paper presents a method for the systematic reuse of formal specifications. The method is described in the framework of the algebraic specification language ASL which allows to build specifications in a modular way. A reusable component consists of a tree of algebraic specifications representing a software module at different levels of abstraction: the root of the tree is understood as the “abstract” requirement or the design specification of a problem, whereas the leaves correspond to different implementations of the root. We propose to construct such components by reusing already existing components based on the following “divide and conquer” principle: a given specification is decomposed into appropriate subspecifications; these are matched with existing components. Then the recomposition of the successful matchings yields automatically a component for the specification we started with.
This research has been partially sponsored by the ESPRIT project DRAGON and the Bavarian Center for Knowledge-Based Systems. A preliminary version of this method (applied to a more simple example) has been published in [Wirsing et al. 89].
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Hennicker, R., Wirsing, M. (1991). A formal method for the systematic reuse of specification components. In: Broy, M., Wirsing, M. (eds) Methods of Programming. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 544. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018269
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0018269
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