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Semantic Hierarchy Refactoring by Abstract Interpretation

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Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation (VMCAI 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3855))

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Abstract

A semantics-based framework is presented for the definition and manipulation of class hierarchies for object-oriented languages. The framework is based on the notion of observable of a class, i.e., an abstraction of its semantics when focusing on a behavioral property of interest. We define a semantic subclass relation, capturing the fact that a subclass preserves the behavior of its superclass up to a given (tunable) observed property. We study the relation between syntactic subclass, as present in mainstream object-oriented languages, and the notion of semantic subclass. The approach is then extended to class hierarchies, leading to a semantics-based modular treatment of a suite of basic observable-preserving operators on hierarchies. We instantiate the framework by presenting effective algorithms that compute a semantic superclass for two given classes, that extend a hierarchy with a new class, and that merge two hierarchies by preserving semantic subclass relations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. École Normale Supérieure, France

    Francesco Logozzo

  2. Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Italy

    Agostino Cortesi

Authors
  1. Francesco Logozzo
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  2. Agostino Cortesi
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard University,, 02138, Cambridge, Mass, USA

    E. Allen Emerson

  2. Bell Laboratories, Alcatel-Lucent,  

    Kedar S. Namjoshi

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Logozzo, F., Cortesi, A. (2005). Semantic Hierarchy Refactoring by Abstract Interpretation. In: Emerson, E.A., Namjoshi, K.S. (eds) Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation. VMCAI 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3855. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11609773_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11609773_21

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-31139-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31622-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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