SOFL: a formal engineering methodology for industrial applications

Abstract

Formal methods have yet to achieve wide industrial acceptance for several reasons. They are not well integrated into established industrial software processes, their application requires signicant abstraction and mathematical skills, and existing tools do not satisfactorily support the entire formal software development process.We h a ve proposed a language called SOFL (Structured-Object-based-Formal Language) and a SOFL methodology for system development that attempts to address these problems using an integration of formal methods, structured methods and object-oriented methodology. Construction of a system uses structured methods in requirements analysis and specications, and an object-based methodology during design and implementation stages, with formal methods applied throughout the development in a manner that best suits their capabilities. This paper describes the SOFL methodology, which introduces some substantial changes from current formal methods practice. A comprehensive, practical case study of an actual industrial Residential Suites Management System illustrates how SOFL is used.

Functionality semantics of predicate data flow diagram

“…When we use Z notation to describe the PDFD, the following given types are needed, their semantics can be found in Ref. [ 3 ].…”

“…Currently, it seems still difficult to improve this situation in the industrial settings, because there is no better choice for practitioners. Although many formal notations, such as Z [48] , VDM-SL [7], LOTOS [8], OBJ [9], and Larch 11°], are available in the literature, they are seldom used in large-scale software development projects, for formal specifications are not easy to write and read by practitioners due to various reasons ( e. g., highly abstract mathematical expressions, practical constraints) [3] .…”