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Preserving specific properties in program development

How to debug programs (Conference version)

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CONCUR '92 (CONCUR 1992)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 630))

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Abstract

The problem of preserving specific temporal properties in program development is addressed. A new relation between programs, or, more generally, between specifications, is defined. This relation is parameterized by a (finite) collection of temporal properties which will be preserved by that relation. Such a relation will, in general, not preserve all temporal properties. It is proved, however, that for a particular choice of the parameter the new relation coincides with Abadi and Lamport's notion of implements [1], which preserves all (externally visible) temporal properties. As a consequence, the approach for program development proposed in the current paper is as least as powerful as those which use implements as their basic refinement relation. Examples of the latter approaches are those proposed by Back [4], by Lynch and Tuttle [27], and by Lam and Shankar [25]. It is argued that the approach in program development which preserves only certain temporal properties is preferable to those approaches which preserve all temporal properties.

It is shown that the approach advocated here is, except for formally developing programs, also applicable for debugging programs, i.e., for correcting programs which do not satisfy their required specification. This provides -for the first time- a formal basis for “correcting code”.

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  1. Institut für Informatik und Praktische Mathematik II, Christian Albrechts Universität, 2300, Kiel, Germany

    F. A. Stomp

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  1. F. A. Stomp
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W.R. Cleaveland

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Stomp, F.A. (1992). Preserving specific properties in program development. In: Cleaveland, W. (eds) CONCUR '92. CONCUR 1992. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 630. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0084791

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0084791

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