Skip to main content

Supporting Requirements Analysis Using Pattern-Based Formal Specification Construction

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Book cover Formal Methods and Software Engineering (ICFEM 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 9407))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Requirements analysis for understanding the user’s requirements and producing a specification is an important but challenging activity in software development. In this paper, we discuss how the activity can be strengthened by means of pattern-based formal specification construction. We explain the concept of specification pattern and describe how patterns are treated as knowledge stored on computer to guide the user in carrying out the analysis of a functional requirement. Our approach is characterized by the fact that the user only needs to work on natural language level while the computer will automatically select appropriate specification patterns to provide clear instructions on the action to be taken by the user and to eventually form a formal specification or expression as a result. We present a software tool and an experiment to demonstrate the supportability and applicability of our approach, respectively.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Knauss, E., Damian, D., Poo-Caamano, G., Cleland-Huang, J.: Detecting and classifying patterns of requirements clarifications. In: 20th IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering, pp. 251–260, September 2012

    Google Scholar 

  2. Kotonya, G., Sommerville, I.: Requirements Engineering - Processes and Techniques. Wiley, Chichester (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Woodcock, J., Larsen, P.G., Bicarregui, J., Fitzgerald, J.: Formal methods: practice and experience. ACM Comput. Surv. 41(4), 1–39 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Parnas, D.L.: Really rethinking formal methods. Computer 43(1), 28–34 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Shalloway, A., Trott, J.R.: Design Patterns Explained, 2nd edn. Pearson Education Inc., Boston (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Wang, X.: A pattern-based approach to requirements formalization and its supporting tool. Ph.D. thesis, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan, March 2014

    Google Scholar 

  7. Fantechi, A., Gnesi, S., Ristori, G., Carenini, M., Vanocchi, M., Moreschini, P.: Assisting requirement formalization by means of natural language translation. Formal Methods Syst. Des. 4(3), 243–263 (1994)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Leitao, D., Torres, D., Barros, F.: Motorola NLForSpec: translating natural language descriptions into formal test case specifications. available on the Internet, Not officially published but available on the Internet

    Google Scholar 

  9. Stepney, S., Polack, F.A.C., Toyn, I.: An outline pattern language for Z: five illustrations and two tables. In: Bert, D., Bowen, J.P., King, S., Waldén, M. (eds.) ZB 2003. LNCS, vol. 2651, pp. 2–19. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Grunske, L.: Specification patterns for probabilistic quality properties. In: 30th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 31–40 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Ding, J., Mo, L., He, X.: An approach for specification construction using property-preserving refinement patterns. In: SAC, pp. 797–803 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Konrad, S., Cheng, B.H.C.: Real-time specification patterns. In: 27th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2005, pp. 372–381. ACM (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Dwyer, M.B., Avrunin, G.S., Corbett, J.C.: Pattern in property specifications for finite-state verification. In: 21th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 411–420. ACM, New York (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Dong, J.S., Hao, P., Qin, S., Sun, J., Yi, W.: Timed automata patterns. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 34(6), 844–859 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Ackermann, J., Turowski, K.: A library of OCL specification patterns for behavioral specification of software components. In: Martinez, F.H., Pohl, K. (eds.) CAiSE 2006. LNCS, vol. 4001, pp. 255–269. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 26240008. It was also partly supported by NSF of China (No. 61402178) and the Shanghai STCSM Project (No. 14YF1404300).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shaoying Liu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Liu, S., Wang, X., Miao, W. (2015). Supporting Requirements Analysis Using Pattern-Based Formal Specification Construction. In: Butler, M., Conchon, S., Zaïdi, F. (eds) Formal Methods and Software Engineering. ICFEM 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9407. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25423-4_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25423-4_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-25422-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-25423-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics