Cesar: a static sequencing constraint analyzer
TAV3 Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFT '89 third symposium on Software testing, analysis, and verification
Cecil: A Sequencing Constraint Language for Automatic Static Analysis Generation
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
| Hi-index | 0.01 |
IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO CHARACTERIZE THE POSSIBLE BEHAVIORS OF A DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE SYSTEM THROUGH INFORMAL REASONING. DEVELOPERS OF SUCH SYSTEMS WOULD THEREFORE BENEFIT FROM TOOLS THAT SUPPORT FORMAL REASONING ABOUT PROPERTIES OF A DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM''S BEHAVIORS. IDEALLY THESE TOOLS SHOULD BE APPLICABLE NOT ONLY TO COMPLETED PROGRAMS BUT ALSO TO DESIGNS AND OTHER PRE-IMPLEMENTATION DESCRIPTIONS OF A SYSTEM AS WELL. FURTHERMORE, A DESIRE FOR SUCH TOOLS SHOULD NOT LIMIT A DEVELOPER''S CHOICE OF LANGUAGES IN WHICH TO DESCRIBE THE DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE SYSTEM DURING THE VARIOUS STAGES OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. UNFORTUNATELY, MOST PREVIOUSLY EXISTING APPROACHES TO FORMAL ANALYSIS OF DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE SYSTEM BEHAVIOR ARE VERY LIMITED IN THEIR APPLICABIL- ITY, EACH TYPICALLY RESTRICTED TO USE WITH ONLY A SINGLE LANGUAGE OR IN A SINGLE STAGE OF THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS. IN THIS PAPER WE PRESENT A BASIS FOR BROADLY APPLICABLE ANALYSIS METHODS FORM DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS. THE CONSTRAINED EXPRESSION FORMALISM CAN BE USED WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT NOTATIONS TO GIVE A UNIFORM, CLOSED-FORM REPRESENTATION OF A SYSTEM''S BEHAVIOR. A COLLECTION OF FORMAL ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES CAN THEN BE APPLIED TO THIS UNIFORM REPRESENTATION OF A SYSTEM''S BEHAVIOR TO ESTABLISH PROPERTIES OF THE SYSTEM. EXAMPLES OF THESE FORMAL ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES AND THEIR USE IN CONJUNCTION WITH SPECIFIC INDIV