A Tool for Writing and Debugging Algebraic Specifications

Abstract

Despite their benefits, programmers rarely use formal specifications, because they are difficult to write and they require an up front investment in time. To address these issues, we present a tool that helps programmers write and debug algebraic specifications. Given an algebraic specification, our tool instantiates a prototype that can be used just like any regular Java class. The tool can also modify an existing application to use the prototype generated by the interpreter instead of a hand-coded implementation. The tool improves the usability of algebraic specifications in the following ways: (i) A programmer can run an algebraic specification to study its behavior. The tool reports in which way a specification is incomplete for a client application. (ii) The tool can check whether a specification and a hand-coded implementation behave the same for a particular run of a client application. (iii) A prototype can be used when a hand-coded implementation is not yet available. Two case studies demonstrate how to use the tool.