Formal Approaches to Computing and Information Technology (FACIT) – serie

This volume contains a collection of case studies in program refinement with the B Method. They show typical program developments from problem analysis to implementation with non-trivial examples. They cover areas for which the B Method was originally conceived as well as the following novel areas: - data structures; - information management; - process control systems; - distributed systems. This volume will primarily be of interest to practitioners who either already use B and want to improve their program refinement techniques, or those who are considering using it and want to learn about its implementation. It will also provide useful background reading for students taking courses in the B Method, Formal Specification, or Refinement.

This volume provides the formal methods practitioner with a survey of the key software specification methods. Each technique is demonstrated using the same case study - an invoicing system - to enable the reader to compare and contrast easily. Among the techniques covered are: UML, Z, SAZ, B, JSD, OMT, VHDL, Estelle, SDL and LOTOS. Most specification courses tend to focus on one or two key techniques and to have a theoretical bias this book provides a basic overview of the main methods, and has a practical focus that allows the reader to apply their knowledge to real-life situations. It hopes to prove to be useful reading for all industrial and commercial practitioners who need to expand their knowledge of software specification methods.

This volume presents twelve case studies that use RAISE - Rigorous Approach to Industrial Software Engineering - to construct, analyse, develop and apply formal specifications. The case studies cover a wide range of application areas including government finance, case-based reasoning, multi-language text processing, object-oriented design patterns, component-based software design and natural resource management. By illustrating the variety of uses of formal specifications, the case studies also raise questions about the creation, purpose and scope of formal models before they are built. Additional resources and complete specifications for all of the case studies and the RAISE tools used to process them, are available on the World Wide Web. This book will be of particular interest to software engineers, especially those responsible for the initial stages of requirements engineering and software architecture and design. It will also be of interest to academics and students on advanced formal methods courses.

Industrial Strength Formal Methods in Practice provides hands-on experience and guidance for anyone who needs to apply formal methods successfully in an industrial context. Each chapter is written by an expert in software engineering or formal methods, and contains background information, introductions to the techniques being used, actual fragments of formalised components, details of results and an analysis of the overall approach. It provides specific details on how to produce high-quality software that comes in on-time and within budget. Aimed mainly at practitioners in software engineering and formal methods, this book will also be of interest to the following groups; academic researchers working in formal methods who are interested in evidence of their success and in how they can be applied on an industrial scale, and students on advanced software engineering courses who need real-life specifications and examples on which to base their work.

This volume seeks to bridge the gap between classical and newer technologies by constructing a systematic measurement framework for both. The authors use their experience as consultants in systems, software and quality engineering to take the subject from concept and theory, via strategy and procedure, to tools and applications. The book clarifies the key notions of system, model, measurement, product, process, specification and design. Practical examples demonstrate the architecture of measurement schemes, extending them to object-oriented and subjective measurement. A detailed case study provides a measurement strategy for formal specifications, including PROLOG, Z and VDM. The reader will be able to formulate problems in measurable terms, appraise and compare formal specifications, assess and enhance existing measurement practices, and devise measurement schemes for describing objective characteristics and expressing value judgements.

This manual examines the practical aspects of using and constructing proofs in the specification and development of computing systems. The reader is guided through the elements of proof construction with the help of numerous worked examples. The techniques can be applied to specification and development in a range of formalisms, and are illustrated using the logic and the basic data types of the VDM specification language. The construction of theorems and proofs from actual specifications and refinements is also described, and a detailed case study, including several refinement steps, shows how formal proofs can be used in practice. In addition, the book contains a directory of axioms and formally proved theorems.

This text aims to explain formal specification and design to practitioners in software development, and to set out the ingredients of a sound software design process. It examines COLD-1, which has been implemented by Philips in many of its business centres. The fact that it is a wide-spectrum language which supports many styles of specification makes it an excellent basis for the volume. It also examines some widely-used informal techniques, such as Venn diagrams and Petri nets, thus creating a strong link between current and future practice. Rather than proposing new pictorial notations, the authors place existing ones into a coherent framework, and explain practical ways of exploiting them in conjunction with COLD-1.

On the Refinement Calculus gives one view of the development of the refinement calculus and its attempt to bring together - among other things - Z specifications and Dijkstra's programming language. It is an excellent source of reference material for all those seeking the background and mathematical underpinnings of the refinement calculus.

This text presents an overview of two approaches to software engineering - formal methods and object-oriented techniques. By extracting the best aspects of each, the text demonstrates how better and safer software is being developed. Three main strands of research are identified and discussed: the application of formal methods to object technology; the extension of formal methods with object-oriented concepts; and the formal foundations of object technology. Examples of each approach are included and areas such as concurrency and real time, which are especially important in the development of large scale, distributed and safety critical systems, are addressed.

An overview of the use of formal object-oriented methods: it covers how and where they should be introduced into the development process, how they can be introduced selectively for critical parts of an application, and how to incorporate them effectively into existing developmental practices. The text is illustrated, both with tutorial and self-assessment exercises and with examples of industrial applications from the reactive systems domain. This study should be of interest to academic and industrial researchers, software engineering practitioners and consultants, and aims to provide reading material for students learning Z++ and VDM++.

B is one of the few formal methods which has robust, commercially-available tool support for the entire development lifecycle from specification through to code generation. This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the B Abstract Machine Notation, and to how it can be used to support formal specification and development of high integrity systems. A strong emphasis is placed on the use of B in the context of existing software development methods, including object-oriented analysis and design. The text includes a large number of worked examples, graduated exercises in B AMN specification and development (all of which have been class-tested), two extended case studies of the development process, and an appendix of proof techniques suitable for B. Based on material which has been used to teach B at postgraduate and undergraduate level, this volume will provide invaluable reading a wide range of people, including students, project technical managers and workers, and researchers with an interest in methods integration and B semantics.

Formal methods have already been shown to improve the development process and quality assurance in system design and implementation. This is an examination of whether these benefits also apply to the field of human-computer interface design and implementation, and whether formal methods can offer useful support in usability evaluation and obtaining more reliable implementations of user requirements. The main aim of this text is to compare the different approaches and examine which particular type of implementation and problem each one is best suited to. To enable the reader to compare and contrast the approaches as easily as possible, each one is applied to the same case study - the specification of an ideal Netscape-like Web browser and HTML page server.

A Theory and Practice of Program Development provides a comprehensive introduction to a software development method based on VDM-SL. Each development step is rigorously justified, and the strategies and transformations used are justified and explained ma thematically. The approach provides the formal semantics of a simple, but powerful, wide-spectrum programming language and gives a formal definition of both algorithmic and data refinement. Unlike other texts, it covers both the theory and practice of program development. Although based on VDM-SL, no knowledge of this language is assumed, thus making it widely accessible. A Theory and Practice of Program Development is intended for 3rd/4th year undergraduate and postgraduate students taking formal methods and software engineering; software developers involved in the production of provably correct computer systems and reusa ble design and the problems of reusable code.

This volume provides a companion to "Proof in VDM: a Practitioner's Guide". Using the proof theory presented in that volume, it examines a variety of realistic case studies which illustrate different aspects of the use of proof in formal development. Rather than concentrating on the construction of formal specifications, it devotes two chapters to validation using proof, describing how proofs in VDM can be constructed via installations of the PVS and Isabelle theorem provers. The book provides reference material for practitioners of formal methods who need to construct proofs, students requiring a detailed introduction to the practicalities of proof, and researchers interested in the role of theorem proving in formal development and relevant tool support.