A hybrid knowledge representation as a basis of requirement specification and specification analysis

Author

Tsai, Jeffrey J P ; Weigert, Thomas ; Jang, Hung-Chin

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Illinois Univ., Chicago, IL, USA

Volume

18

Issue

12

fYear

1992

fDate

12/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1076

Lastpage

1100

Abstract

A formal requirement specification language, the frame-and-rule oriented requirement specification language FRORL, developed to facilitate the specification, analysis, and development of a software system is presented. The surface syntax of FRORL is based on the concepts of frames and production rules that may bear hierarchical relationships to each other, relying on multiple inheritance. To provide thorough semantic foundations, FRORL is based on a nonmonotonic variant of Horn-clause logic. Using the machinery of Horn-clause logic, various properties of a FRORL specification can be analyzed. Among the external properties of FRORL are formality, object-orientedness, and a wide spectrum of life cycle phases. Intrinsic properties are modularity, provision for incremental development, inheritance, refinement, reusability, prototyping, and executability. A software development environment based on FRORL has been implemented using the C language on a Sun workstation

Keywords

Horn clauses; formal specification; knowledge representation; logic programming languages; specification languages; C language; FRORL; executability; formal requirement specification language; frame-and-rule oriented requirement specification language; frames; hierarchical relationships; hybrid knowledge representation; inheritance; multiple inheritance; nonmonotonic Horn clause logic; object oriented; production rules; prototyping; reusability; software development environment; surface syntax; Knowledge representation; Logic; Machinery; Production; Programming; Prototypes; Software prototyping; Software systems; Specification languages; Sun;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.184762

Filename

184762