Correctness and Composition of Software Architectures

Abstract

The design of a large system typically involves the development of a hierarchy of different but related architectures. A criterion for the relative correctness of an architecture is presented, and conditions for architecture composition are defined which ensure that the correctness of a composite architecture follows from the correctness of its parts. Both the criterion and the composition requirements reflect special considerations from the domain of software architecture.The main points are illustrated by means of familiar architecture for a compiler. A proof of the relative correctness of two different compiler architectures shows how to decompose a proof into generic properties, which are proved once for every pair of architectural styles, and instance-level properties, which must be proved for every architecture.