Using SCL to specify and check design intent in source code

Author

Hou, Daqing ; Hoover, H. James

Author_Institution

Avra Software Lab. Inc., Edmonton, Alta.

Volume

32

Issue

6

fYear

2006

fDate

6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

404

Lastpage

423

Abstract

Software developers often fail to respect the intentions of designers due to missing or ignored documentation of design intent. SCL (Structural Constraint Language) addresses this problem by enabling designers to formalize and confirm compliance with design intent. The designer expresses his intent as constraints on the program model using the SCL language. The SCL conformance checking tool examines developer code to confirm that the code honors these constraints. This paper presents the design of the SCL language and its checker, a set of practical examples of applying SCL, and our experience with using it both in an industrial setting and on open-source software

Keywords

formal specification; formal verification; object-oriented programming; public domain software; source coding; SCL conformance checking tool; SCL language; open-source software; program model; source code; structural constraint language; Application software; Computer industry; Context modeling; Documentation; Government; Helium; Object oriented modeling; Open source software; Programming; Roads; Design intent; FCL.; SCL; object-oriented software; program analysis; structural constraints;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TSE.2006.60

Filename

1650215