Direct validation of formal specifications

This research concerns the validation of software requirements expressed in formal specifications without the use of conventional prototypes. It is an investigation into the feasibility of a system which takes a formal specification as input and allows the end user to experiment `directly´ with the specification in order to make sure that his requirements have been captured correctly. The system is intended to behave, from the user´s perspective, as if it were an implementation of the specification. The approach offers a number of benefits. Firstly, it eliminates the need for developing custom-built prototypes for each and every specification for the purpose of validation of user requirements. As a result, some of the potential drawbacks of prototyping would disappear. Secondly, the approach makes the application of formal methods in software development easier and closer to that of conventional techniques, thus contributing to the wider industrial use of formal methods