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Declarative specifications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Norbert E. Fuchs
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Email: fuchs@ifi.unizh.ch
David Robertson
Affiliation:
Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. Email: dr@aisb.ed.ac.uk

Abstract

Deriving formal specifications from informal requirements is extremely difficult since one has to overcome the conceptual gap between an application domain and the domain of formal specification methods. To reduce this gap we introduce application-specific specification languages, i.e., graphical and textual notations that can be unambiguously mapped to formal specifications in a logic language. We describe a number of realised approaches based on this idea, and evaluate them with respect to their domain specificity vs. generality.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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