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Topic: Formal specification

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	SENG611: Formal Specification Summary
		Formal specifications are used to describe a system in a language whose vocabulary, syntax and semantics are formally defined using mathematical notations.
		Formal specifications can be used to build model of a system in mathematical way, and proof that the system would work as desired, even before design.
		Formal specifications helps to eliminate ambiguity of natural language in requirements specification, but I doubt if there would ever come a time that users get to appreciate formal methods of specification, because of lack of familiarity and skill level required.
	pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca /~saliu/formalSpec.htm (538 words)

	Formal specification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		A formal specification is a mathematical description of software or hardware that may be used to develop an implementation.
		Given such a specification, it is possible to use formal verification techniques to demonstrate that a candidate system design is correct with respect to the specification.
		However, it is possible to validate a specification by proving “challenge” theorems concerning properties that the specification is expected to exhibit.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Formal_specification (326 words)

	RFC 904 (rfc904) - Exterior Gateway Protocol formal specification
		The specification is intended as a reference guide for implementation, testing and verification and includes suggested algorithmic parameters suitable for operation over a wide set of configurations, including the ARPANET and many local-network technologies now part of the Internet system.
		Specifically excluded in this document is discussion on the background, application and limitations of EGP, which have been discussed elsewhere (RFC-827, RFC-888).
		Specification of EGP is based on a formal model consisting of a Exterior Gateway Protocol Formal Specification Page 2 D.L. Mills finite-state automaton with defined events, state transitions and actions.
	www.faqs.org /rfcs/rfc904.html (6321 words)

	SIGCHI Bulletin Vol.28 No.3, July 1996: Formal Specification of User Interfaces
		The formal expression of the CARE properties relies on the notions of state, goal, modality, and temporal relationships, which are the crucial concepts to formally define multimodality.
		The mathematicians maintained that a specification was not formal unless it supported reasoning and prediction while the human factors group maintained that it just had to be communicable.
		On the question as to what specification technique should be used, it was discussed that the specification used is dependent on the audience and the task that the specification is to accomplish.
	acm.org /sigchi/bulletin/1996.3/rouff.html (4946 words)

	Formal Methods - Specification Methods (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Formal methods were originally developed to support verifications, but higher interest currently exists in specification methods.
		Formal methods are useful in programming because programs can be viewed both as a set of commands for physical machines and as abstract mathematical objects as provided by these alternative models.
		Formal specifications should not be presented without a restatement of the specification in a natural language.
	www.dacs.dtic.mil /techs/fmreview/specification.html (1134 words)

	Chapter 4 Web book - Formal Verification (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Formal specification is a specification expressed in a language whose vocabulary, syntax, and semantics are formally defined, and which has a mathematical basis.
		Formal verification is the process of determining whether or not the products of a given phase in the life-cycle fulfill a set of established requirements, using a formal mathematical notation.
		Informal specifications are usually in English, and formal specifications are expressed in a formal specification language.
	www.cis.ksu.edu /~hankley/d841/Fa99/chap4.html (3976 words)

	Formal Specification Summary SENG 611
		A formal specification is a minimal description of a system in a mathematical notation (Kremer, 2000).
		You should use formal specifications for mission critical systems, very complex problems, security or where lives are on the line.
		Formal specifications are costly and should only be used on subsystems which require it.
	www.ucalgary.ca /~dbmenks/seng/seng611/formal.html (305 words)

	CPSC 333: Introduction to Formal Methods
		Indeed, it is sometimes helpful to develop a formal specification of an existing system if that system is complex, and it is to be changed or replaced, since this can detect subtle errors that would otherwise be included in the modified (or new) system.
		Formal specifications may be used as a guide to the tester of a component in identifying appropriate test cases.
		In order to choose effectively from the large number of formal specification languages that now exist, a software engineer should consider language vocabulary, the type of the application to be specified, and the breadth of usage of the language.
	pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca /~eberly/Courses/CPSC333/Lectures/Formal_Methods/intro.html (1743 words)

	CMPE 3213 Advanced Software Engineering
		That is, a specification language must be capable of expressing ideas such as "For all x in an infinite set A, there exists a y in an infinite set B such that the property P holds for x and y." Conventional programming languages are not capable of this.
		However, it is recommended that a natural-language commentary accompany the formal specification to serve as a mechanism for reinforcing the readers understanding of the system.
		Formal specification removes ambiguity and encourages greater rigor in the early stages of the software engineering process.
	www.ee.unb.ca /kengleha/courses/CMPE3213/FormalMethods/FormalMethods.htm (3865 words)

	JOT: Journal of Object Technology - BON-CASE: An Extensible CASE Tool for Formal Specification and Reasoning
		The tool's support for formal techniques - in particular, for formal specification of contracts and frames, as a platform for verification of Eiffel code, for lightweight integration with existing reasoning tools (such as type checkers, theorem provers, and static assertion checkers), and its extensible architecture - is discussed.
		BON has been designed from the start to support formal specification techniques, which have proven to be useful, if not essential, in designing such systems.
		JML is a specification language for Java, and as such it does not support multiple implementation inheritance.
	www.jot.fm /issues/issue_2002_08/article5 (5948 words)

	Formal methods in HCI (chapter)
		Formal notations and mathematics are used in several areas of human-computer interaction, including cognitive modelling and task analysis.
		The specification of an interactive system should not determine the algorithms and data structures used to build the system – that is the proper domain of the programmer.
		Finally, dialogue notations are again used to describe specific systems, but at a different level of detail than a full formal specification.
	www.comp.lancs.ac.uk /computing/users/dixa/papers/formal-chapter-95 (1370 words)

	HTML 4.01 Specification
		This specification defines HTML 4.01, which is a subversion of HTML 4.
		This specification is the first HTML 4.01 Recommendation.
		It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document.
	www.w3.org /TR/REC-html40 (716 words)

	Formal Specification of Software - March 1994
		Current wisdom dictates that formal specification should be produced using a formal language that resembles mathematical logic.
		Among the useful qualities of formal specification systems are reduced ambiguity, better interface to modern programming practices, easier verification of correctness, completeness and consistency analysis, simpler prototyping, and possible transformation of the specifications into design, code, or test suites.
		Nonetheless, formal specification seems to be one of the waves of the future and in theory provides powerful advantages for the software engineer.
	www.stsc.hill.af.mil /crosstalk/1994/03/xt94d03e.asp (2806 words)

	Chapter 4 Web book - Formal Verification
		Formal specification is a specification expressed in a language whose vocabulary, syntax, and semantics are formally defined, and which has a mathematical basis.
		Formal verification is the process of determining whether or not the products of a given phase in the life-cycle fulfill a set of established requirements, using a formal mathematical notation.
		Informal specifications are usually in English, and formal specifications are expressed in a formal specification language.
	people.cis.ksu.edu /~hankley/d841/Fa99/chap4.html (3976 words)

	Formal Methods
		Formal methods differ from other design systems through the use of formal verification schemes, the basic principles of the system must be proven correct before they are accepted [Bowen93].
		Formal methods are distinguished from other specification systems by their emphasis on correctness and proof, which is ultimately another measure of system integrity.
		The lightweight approach to formal design recognizes that formal methods are not a panacea: there are areas where formal methods are useful, and areas where a formal specification will accomplish nothing.
	www.ece.cmu.edu /~koopman/des_s99/formal_methods (2565 words)

	Formal Specification Languages
		Specification languages for describing concurrent systems are sometimes implicitly based on a specific (though perhaps implicit) model for concurrency.
		The the Z specification language is at bottom a typed set theory which could therefore have been positioned as a foundational specification language were it not that its use has predominantly been advocated in a free-wheeling axiomatic manner and no rules are enunciated to permit specification by conservative extension.
		Two examples of such hybrid notations are RSL the specification language associated with the RAISE development methods, and LOTOS, a specification notation intended originally for the specification of communication protocols.
	www.rbjones.com /rbjpub/cs/csfm02.htm (998 words)

	R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc.
		Formal methods allow a software engineer to create a specification that is more complete, consistent, and unambiguous than those produced using conventional or object-oriented methods.
		Because the specification is created using mathematical notation, it is inherently less ambiguous that informal modes of representation.
		Sheppard, D., An Introduction to Formal Specification with Z and VDM, McGraw-Hill, 1995.
	www.rspa.com /spi/formal-methods.html (689 words)

	4.19 Method Category "Formal Specification" (FS)
		The formal specification of the preceding level of refinement and the refined non-formal specification are the basis for the refinement.
		A specific education is essential for the understanding and the further developing of formal specifications (e.
		By means of the formal specifications in the SW Architecture critical interfaces are selected and are specified precisely and completely.
	www.informatik.uni-bremen.de /uniform/gdpa/methods/m-fs.htm (869 words)

	8. Formal Specification Examples
		Another problem is that in some cases we find that in order to state a specification sufficiently precisely, we need to interject auxiliary functions, thereby violating the general rule that a specification should contain only entities directly visible to the end user.
		An equational specification formally defines an object in terms of equations between the operations of the object.
		Specifically, equations are defined in groups, where the first of the group specifies what a selector does with an initializer.
	www.csc.calpoly.edu /~gfisher/classes/308/doc/ref-man/formal-spec-examples.html (5457 words)

	XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition
		It is the intention of this specification that it be usable outside of the context of XML Schemas for a wide range of other XML-related activities such as [XSL] and [RDF Schema].
		[Definition:] In this specification, a datatype is a 3-tuple, consisting of a) a set of distinct values, called its ·value space·, b) a set of lexical representations, called its ·lexical space·, and c) a set of ·facet·s that characterize properties of the ·value space·, individual values or lexical items.
		For example, in this specification, float is a well-defined mathematical concept that cannot be defined in terms of other datatypes, while a integer is a special case of the more general datatype decimal.
	www.w3.org /TR/xmlschema-2 (9338 words)

	Formal Specification of an Active Networks Programming Language (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Our contribution is a specification of PLAN, and in fact of a more general language, using rewriting logic as a formal specification language.
		The formal specification is executable and therefore provides an execution environment of PLAN programs.
		On the other hand, the formal specification is intuitive, easy to understand and can serve as a useful guide for application programmers and language implementors.
	www-formal.stanford.edu /clt/plan.html (586 words)

	Formal Specification and Verification of ARM6
		Specifications of AMULET1 at the instruction level, and all the floor plan elements are presented in Liu's thesis.
		The aim of this research is to develop full-scale executable specifications of an industrial strength microprocessor at both the instruction and architectural levels and to use formal verification to establish equivalence or refinement relationships between parts of these specifications.
		Amongst the formal challenges for the instruction set semantics will be the verification of desired properties of short sequences of instructions, a la Boyer and Yu [7].
	www.cl.cam.ac.uk /users/mjcg/ARM/project.html (5988 words)

	Formal Specification
		Formal specification is the specification of a program's properties in a language defined by a mathematical logic.
		Strictly speaking, this specification need not be executable (and hence not testable), however most languages used to formally specify programs have an associated operational semantics to allow executing the specification and testing a program's properties.
		So formal specification and a TheoremProving will never show a given property to be absolutely true.
	c2.com /cgi/wiki?FormalSpecification (393 words)

	SSD29 - Formal Specification
		A formal specification is required for the formal security model needed with evaluation level E4 according to ITSEC.
		The specification language is adjusted to the expressiveness of other utilized languages, in particular to the target language.
		It is possible to execute parts of the specifications defined with method FS or generate source code for the required target language.
	www.informatik.uni-bremen.de /uniform/gdpa/tools/ssd29.htm (806 words)

	Diagnosing Java code: Walking the specification tightrope
		A specification may be formalized or loosely defined, depending on the stability and criticality of the system under development, as well as the ease with which the system can be modified after deployment.
		In fact, compiler writers often revel in less formal specification because it gives them more room in which to optimize a program.The other, occasional, users of a language are the programmers, and most of them greatly appreciate an informal specification that they can easily understand.
		Although no formal specification (akin to that of ML) exists for the Java language, a great deal of care was put into the development of a precise informal specification.
	www.ibm.com /developerworks/java/library/j-diag0219.html (2619 words)

	Formal methods in interface specification
		Research in formal methods has been going on for more than twenty years now in various areas such as mathematical verification, formal specification, transformation, prototyping, and testing.
		Grammars for textual interfaces (e.g., command line interfaces) are fairly common, formalized grammars (e.g., a set of linguistic rules for the formulation of command syntax) for textual interfaces are somewhat less common; formalized grammars for GUIs are fairly rare...as are formal languages for user interface specification.
		It is a partially annotated bibliographic listing of publications, some of which are quite germane to the topic of grammars and formal languages applicable to user interface specification and some of which are only tangentially related to that topic.
	www.otal.umd.edu /guse/formal.html (2301 words)

	XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics
		A rigorous formal semantics clarifies the intended meaning of the English specification, ensures that no corner cases are left out, and provides a reference for implementation.
		Rigor is achieved by the use of formal notations to represent [XPath/XQuery] objects such as expressions, XML values, and XML Schema types, and by the systematic definition of the relationships between those objects to reflect the meaning of the language.
		The Formal Semantics makes use of several kinds of grammar productions: productions from the [XPath/XQuery] grammar itself, productions for a subset of the [XPath/XQuery] language called the XQuery Core which is used throughout this document, and other productions used for formal specification only such as for the XQuery type system.
	www.w3.org /TR/xquery-semantics (7069 words)

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