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A specification language is a formal language in computer science used during systems analysis, requirements analysis, and systems design to describe a system at a much higher level than a programming language, which is used to produce the executable code for a system. [1]
Specification languages are generally not directly executed. They are meant to describe the what, not the how. It is considered an error if a requirement specification is cluttered with unnecessary implementation detail.
A common fundamental assumption of many specification approaches is that programs are modelled as algebraic or model-theoretic structures that include a collection of sets of data values together with functions over those sets. This level of abstraction coincides with the view that the correctness of the input/output behaviour of a program takes precedence over all its other properties.
In the property-oriented approach to specification (taken e.g. by CASL), specifications of programs consist mainly of logical axioms, usually in a logical system in which equality has a prominent role, describing the properties that the functions are required to satisfy—often just by their interrelationship. This is in contrast to so-called model-oriented specification in frameworks like VDM and Z, which consist of a simple realization of the required behaviour.
Specifications must be subject to a process of refinement (the filling-in of implementation detail) before they can actually be implemented. The result of such a refinement process is an executable algorithm, which is either formulated in a programming language, or in an executable subset of the specification language at hand. For example, Hartmann pipelines, when properly applied, may be considered a dataflow specification which is directly executable. Another example is the actor model which has no specific application content and must be specialized to be executable.
An important use of specification languages is enabling the creation of proofs of program correctness (see theorem prover ).
Design by contract (DbC), also known as contract programming, programming by contract and design-by-contract programming, is an approach for designing software.
In software engineering and computer science, abstraction is the process of generalizing concrete details, such as attributes, away from the study of objects and systems to focus attention on details of greater importance. Abstraction is a fundamental concept in computer science and software engineering, especially within the object-oriented programming paradigm. Examples of this include:
In computer engineering, a hardware description language (HDL) is a specialized computer language used to describe the structure and behavior of electronic circuits, most commonly to design ASICs and program FPGAs.
The Vienna Development Method (VDM) is one of the longest-established formal methods for the development of computer-based systems. Originating in work done at the IBM Laboratory Vienna in the 1970s, it has grown to include a group of techniques and tools based on a formal specification language—the VDM Specification Language (VDM-SL). It has an extended form, VDM++, which supports the modeling of object-oriented and concurrent systems. Support for VDM includes commercial and academic tools for analyzing models, including support for testing and proving properties of models and generating program code from validated VDM models. There is a history of industrial usage of VDM and its tools and a growing body of research in the formalism has led to notable contributions to the engineering of critical systems, compilers, concurrent systems and in logic for computer science.
In computer science, formal methods are mathematically rigorous techniques for the specification, development, analysis, and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expectation that, as in other engineering disciplines, performing appropriate mathematical analysis can contribute to the reliability and robustness of a design.
Reification is the process by which an abstract idea about a computer program is turned into an explicit data model or other object created in a programming language. A computable/addressable object—a resource—is created in a system as a proxy for a non computable/addressable object. By means of reification, something that was previously implicit, unexpressed, and possibly inexpressible is explicitly formulated and made available to conceptual manipulation. Informally, reification is often referred to as "making something a first-class citizen" within the scope of a particular system. Some aspect of a system can be reified at language design time, which is related to reflection in programming languages. It can be applied as a stepwise refinement at system design time. Reification is one of the most frequently used techniques of conceptual analysis and knowledge representation.
In the context of hardware and software systems, formal verification is the act of proving or disproving the correctness of a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property, using formal methods of mathematics. Formal verification is a key incentive for formal specification of systems, and is at the core of formal methods. It represents an important dimension of analysis and verification in electronic design automation and is one approach to software verification. The use of formal verification enables the highest Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL7) in the framework of common criteria for computer security certification.
In computer science, model checking or property checking is a method for checking whether a finite-state model of a system meets a given specification. This is typically associated with hardware or software systems, where the specification contains liveness requirements as well as safety requirements.
In computer science, program derivation is the derivation of a program from its specification, by mathematical means.
Formal equivalence checking process is a part of electronic design automation (EDA), commonly used during the development of digital integrated circuits, to formally prove that two representations of a circuit design exhibit exactly the same behavior.
Refinement is a generic term of computer science that encompasses various approaches for producing correct computer programs and simplifying existing programs to enable their formal verification.
The B method is a method of software development based on B, a tool-supported formal method based on an abstract machine notation, used in the development of computer software.
In computer science, formal specifications are mathematically based techniques whose purpose are to help with the implementation of systems and software. They are used to describe a system, to analyze its behavior, and to aid in its design by verifying key properties of interest through rigorous and effective reasoning tools. These specifications are formal in the sense that they have a syntax, their semantics fall within one domain, and they are able to be used to infer useful information.
Runtime verification is a computing system analysis and execution approach based on extracting information from a running system and using it to detect and possibly react to observed behaviors satisfying or violating certain properties. Some very particular properties, such as datarace and deadlock freedom, are typically desired to be satisfied by all systems and may be best implemented algorithmically. Other properties can be more conveniently captured as formal specifications. Runtime verification specifications are typically expressed in trace predicate formalisms, such as finite state machines, regular expressions, context-free patterns, linear temporal logics, etc., or extensions of these. This allows for a less ad-hoc approach than normal testing. However, any mechanism for monitoring an executing system is considered runtime verification, including verifying against test oracles and reference implementations. When formal requirements specifications are provided, monitors are synthesized from them and infused within the system by means of instrumentation. Runtime verification can be used for many purposes, such as security or safety policy monitoring, debugging, testing, verification, validation, profiling, fault protection, behavior modification, etc. Runtime verification avoids the complexity of traditional formal verification techniques, such as model checking and theorem proving, by analyzing only one or a few execution traces and by working directly with the actual system, thus scaling up relatively well and giving more confidence in the results of the analysis, at the expense of less coverage. Moreover, through its reflective capabilities runtime verification can be made an integral part of the target system, monitoring and guiding its execution during deployment.
CADP is a toolbox for the design of communication protocols and distributed systems. CADP is developed by the CONVECS team at INRIA Rhone-Alpes and connected to various complementary tools. CADP is maintained, regularly improved, and used in many industrial projects.
The Knowledge Based Software Assistant (KBSA) was a research program funded by the United States Air Force. The goal of the program was to apply concepts from artificial intelligence to the problem of designing and implementing computer software. Software would be described by models in very high level languages (essentially equivalent to first order logic) and then transformation rules would transform the specification into efficient code. The air force hoped to be able to generate the software to control weapons systems and other command and control systems using this method. As software was becoming ever more critical to USAF weapons systems it was realized that improving the quality and productivity of the software development process could have significant benefits for the military, as well as for information technology in other major US industries.
The Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA) was one of the first cryptographic functions for computing a message authentication code (MAC).
Grigore Roșu is a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a researcher in the Information Trust Institute. He is known for his contributions in runtime verification, the K framework, matching logic, and automated coinduction.
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