A component-based approach to building formal analysis tools

  • Authors:

  • R. E. Kurt Stirewalt;Laura K. Dillon

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

  • Venue:
  • ICSE '01 Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

Automatic-verification capability tends to be packaged into stand-alone tools, as opposed to components that are easily integrated into a larger software-development environment. Such packaging complicates integration because it involves translating internal representations into a form compatible with the stand-alone tool. By contrast, lightweight-analysis components package analysis capability in a form that does not involve such a translation. Borrowing ideas from GenVoca and object-oriented design patterns, we developed a domain model and an automatic-generation framework for lightweight-analysis components. The generated components operate directly over the internal form of a specification without requiring a change in representation. Moreover, the domain model identifies several “useful subsets” that can be used to customize analysis capability to a particular application. We validated this domain model by generating lightweight analyzers for temporal logic and the behavioral subset of Lotos.