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Formal semantic conflict detection in aspect-oriented requirements

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Abstract

The goal of Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering is to identify possible crosscutting concerns, and to develop composition specifications, which can be used to reason about potential conflicts in the requirements. Recent work in AORE has moved from a syntactic approach to composition, which leads to fragile compositions and increased coupling between aspect and base concerns, to a semantic composition approach, based on semantics of the natural language itself. However, such compositions are at present only informally specified, and as such precise conflict detection between the requirements compositions is difficult. We present an approach for the formalisation of these semantic-based compositions which means that logical conflicts between compositions can be precisely identified and understood semantically. We show that the approach can be supported by off-the-shelf tools, meaning it is scalable and feasible for even large requirements specifications.

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Notes

  1. Here, a pointcut is an expression which can pick out one or more requirements or other elements at which the composition applies.

  2. If such models for requirements are available, they should be used in addition (if only part of system is represented via these, and some other part is described in text only) or instead (if the whole system is modelled via such diagrams) of textual requirements.

  3. Here, the base refers to those requirements which are affected by the aspects.

  4. A similar example for the use case approach [3] is presented in [4].

  5. The formal semantics of the indicative conditional—that is, the intuitive understanding of the natural language statement “if A then B”—is one of the classic unsolved problems in formal logic. Here we make no attempt to add to this literature, but instead present a formulation which captures what we require to be true for a composition to be correctly applied—in the case of “if”, that either both requirements are satisfied, or neither of them are.

  6. We do not claim that these represent the total set of conflicts possible within a requirements specification.

  7. Note that X and Z may actually be temporally exclusive if the Before(X,Z) relation holds true, but we cannot tell whether this is the case from the information we have here.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by: European Commission Grant: AOSD-Europe: European Network of Excellence on Aspect-Oriented Software Development (IST-2-004349); European Commission Grant: AMPLE: Aspect-Oriented and Model-Driven Product Line Engineering (IST-33710); European Commission Grant: DiVA: Dynamic Variability In Complex, Dynamic Systems (ICT-215412).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Department, InfoLab21, South Drive, Lancaster University, LA1 4WA, Lancaster, UK

    Nathan Weston, Ruzanna Chitchyan & Awais Rashid

Authors
  1. Nathan Weston
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  2. Ruzanna Chitchyan
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  3. Awais Rashid
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nathan Weston.

Appendices

Appendix A: Formal compositions for the auction system

1.1 A.1 EnrolComposition

figure e
$$ \begin{aligned} EnrolComposition &\equiv \forall r, s. (Concern(s) = ``Enrol{\hbox {''}})\\ &\rightarrow (\exists k. Meets(Time(s), k) \wedge (Meets(k, Time(r))\\ &\wedge pre(s) = \neg In(``user{\hbox {''}}, ``system{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge post(s) = In(``user{\hbox {''}}, ``system{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge Finishes(pre(s), Time(s))\\ &\wedge Meets(Time(s), post(s))\\ \end{aligned} $$

1.2 A.2 LoggingComposition

figure f
$$ \begin{aligned} LoggingComposition &\equiv \forall r, s. (Concern(s) = ``AccessControl{\hbox {''}})\\ &\rightarrow (\exists k. Meets(Time(s), k) \wedge (Meets(k, Time(r))\\ &\wedge pre(s) = In(``user{\hbox {''}}, ``system{\hbox {''}}) \wedge\\ &\neg Authenticated(``user{\hbox {''}}, ``system{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge post(s) = In(``user{\hbox {''}}, ``system{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge Authenticated(``user{\hbox {''}}, ``system)\\ &\wedge Finishes(pre(s), Time(s))\\ &\wedge Meets(Time(s), post(s))\\ \end{aligned} $$

1.3 A.3 ConcurrencyComposition

figure g
$$ \begin{aligned} ConcurrencyComposition &\equiv \forall r,s. Relationship(r)=``bid{\hbox {''}} \vee\\ &(Relationship(r)=``increase{\hbox {''}} \wedge Object(r)=``credit)\\ &\wedge Concern(s)=``Concurrency{\hbox {''}} \rightarrow Concurrent(Time(s), Time(r))\\ &\wedge con(s) = Concurrent(``auction\; system{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge Concurrent(con(s), Time(s))\\ \end{aligned} $$

1.4 A.4 ManageBidComposition

figure h
$$ ManageBidComposition \equiv ManageBidComposition_1 \wedge ManageBidComposition_2 $$
$$ \begin{aligned} ManageBidComposition_1 &\equiv \forall r,s. (Relationship(r)=``start{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge((Subject(r)=``auction{\hbox {''}} \vee Subject(r)=``start\; date{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge(Relationship(s)=``bid{\hbox {''}}) \rightarrow\\ &\exists k. Meets(Time(s),k) \wedge Meets(k, Time(r))\\ &\wedge Starts(Time(s), Time(``auction{\hbox {''}}))\\ \end{aligned} $$
$$ \begin{aligned} ManageBidComposition_2 &\equiv \forall r,s. (Relationship(r)=``bid{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge((Subject(s)=``auction{\hbox {''}} \vee Subject(s)=``end\; date{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge (Relationship(s)=``end{\hbox {''}}) \rightarrow\\ &\exists k. Meets(Time(s),k) \wedge Meets(k, Time(r))\\ &\wedge Finishes(Time(r), Time(``bid{\hbox {''}}))\\ \end{aligned} $$

1.5 A.5 CalculateBidComposition

figure i
$$ \begin{aligned} CalculateBidComposition &\equiv \forall r,s,t. (Subject(r)=``auction{\hbox {''}}\\ & \wedge Relationship(r)=``end{\hbox {''}})\\ & \wedge (Subject(s)=``system{\hbox {''}} \wedge Relationship(s)=``deposit{\hbox {''}}\\ & \wedge Object(s)=``bid{\hbox {''}})\\ & \wedge (Subject(t)=``bid{\hbox {''}} \wedge Relationship(t)=``not\; less\; than{\hbox {''}}\\ & \wedge Relationship(t)=``reserve\; price{\hbox {''}}) \rightarrow\\ & \exists k. (Meets(Time(r), k) \wedge Meets(k, Time(s)))\\ & \wedge pre(s) = \neg Has(``system{\hbox {''}}, ``bid{\hbox {''}})\\ & \wedge post(s) = Has(``system{\hbox {''}}, ``bid{\hbox {''}})\\ & \wedge Finishes(pre(s), Time(s)) \wedge Meets(Time(s), post(s))\\ & \wedge (Retain(s) \rightarrow \neg LessThan(``bid{\hbox {''}}, ``reserve price{\hbox {''}}))\\ \end{aligned} $$

1.6 A.6 CancelAuctionComposition

figure j
$$ \begin{aligned} CancelAuctionComposition &\equiv \forall r,s,t. (Subject(r)=``auction{\hbox {''}}\\ & \wedge Relationship(r)=``begin{\hbox {''}})\\ & \wedge (Subject(s)=``seller{\hbox {''}} \wedge Relationship(s)=``end{\hbox {''}}\\ & \wedge Object(s)=``auction{\hbox {''}})\\ & \wedge (Subject(t)=``start\; date{\hbox {''}} \vee Object(t)=``start\;date{\hbox {''}}) \rightarrow\\ & \neg (Satisfied(s) \wedge Satisfied(r))\\ & \wedge (Starts(Time(Begin(s)), Time(``auction{\hbox {''}})) \rightarrow Satisfied(t)) \end{aligned} $$

1.7 A.7 ValidateBidComposition

figure k
$$ \begin{aligned} ValidateBidComposition &\equiv \forall r,s. Relationship(r)=``bid{\hbox {''}}\\ &\wedge Concern(s)=``Validate\; Bid{\hbox {''}} \rightarrow\\ &\exists k. Meets(Time(s), k) \wedge (k, Time(r))\\ &\wedge pre(s) = \neg Valid(``bid{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge post(s) = Valid(``bid{\hbox {''}})\\ &\wedge Finishes(pre(s), Time(s)) \wedge Meets(Time(s), post(s)) \end{aligned} $$

Appendix B: Prover9 example

2.1 B.1 pre(t) and post(s)

2.1.1 B.1.1 Input to Prover9

figure l

2.1.2 B.1.2 Proof (no conflict)

figure m

2.2 B.2 pre(s) and post(t)

2.2.1 B.2.1 Input to Mace4

figure n

2.2.2 B.2.2 Model of negation (conflict)

figure o

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Weston, N., Chitchyan, R. & Rashid, A. Formal semantic conflict detection in aspect-oriented requirements. Requirements Eng 14, 247–268 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-009-0083-y

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