Chapter 21

 Formal Modeling and Verification

Slide Set to accompany
Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 7/e
by Roger S. Pressman

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Formal
Methods  “Formal methods used in developing computer systems are mathematically based
techniques for describing system properties. Such formal methods provide
frameworks within which people can specify, develop, and verify systems in a
systematic, rather than ad hoc manner.”
The Encyclopedia of Software Engineering [Mar01]
 The Problem with conventional specs:
 contradictions
 ambiguities
 vagueness
 incompleteness
 mixed levels of abstraction

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 Formal Specification
 Desired properties—consistency, completeness, and lack of
ambiguity—are the objectives of all specification methods
 The formal syntax of a specification language enables
requirements or design to be interpreted in only one way,
eliminating ambiguity that often occurs when a natural
language (e.g., English) or a graphical notation must be
interpreted
 The descriptive facilities of set theory and logic notation enable
clear statement of facts (requirements).
 Consistency is ensured by mathematically proving that initial
facts can be formally mapped (using inference rules) into later
statements within the specification.

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 Formal Methods Concepts
 data invariant—a condition that is true throughout the
execution of the system that contains a collection of data
 state
 Many formal languages, such as OCL (Section 28.5) , use
the notion of states as they were discussed in Chapters 7
and 8, that is, a system can be in one of several states,
each representing an externally observable mode of
behavior.
 The Z language (Section 28.6)defines a state as the stored
data which a system accesses and alters
 operation—an action that takes place in a system and
reads or writes data to a state
 precondition defines the circumstances in which a particular
operation is valid
 postcondition defines what happens when an operation has
completed its action

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An Example—Print Spooler
Device queues files awaiting printing

LP1 ftax persons

LP2 newdata
LAS1
LAS2 exres

Limits Size

LP1 -> 750 newdata -> 450

LP2 -> 500 ftax -> 650
LAS1 -> 300 exres -> 50
LAS2 -> 200 persons -> 700

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States and Data Invariant
The state of the spooler is represented by the four components
Queues, OutputDevices, Limits, and Sizes.
The data invariant has five components:
• Each output device is associated with an upper limit of
print lines
• Each output device is associated with a possibly
nonempty queue of files awaiting printing
• Each file is associated with a size
• Each queue associated with an output device contains files
that have a size less than the upper limit of the output
device
• There will be no more than MaxDevs output devices
administered by the spooler

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Operations
 An operation which adds a new output device to the
spooler together with its associated print limit
 An operation which removes a file from the queue
associated with a particular output device
 An operation which adds a file to the queue associated
with a particular output device
 An operation which alters the upper limit of print lines for a
particular output device
 An operation which moves a file from a queue associated
with an output device to another queue associated with a
second output device

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Pre- & Postconditions
For the first operation (adds a new output device to the
spooler together with its associated print limit):
Precondition: the output device name does not already exist
and that there are currently less than MaxDevs output devices
known to the spooler
Postcondition: the name of the new device is added to the
collection of existing device names, a new entry is formed for
the device with no files being associated with its queue, and
the device is associated with its print limit.

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Mathematical Concepts*
 sets and constructive set specification
 set operators
 logic operators
 e.g., i, j: • i > j i2 => j2
 which states that, for every pair of values in the set
of natural numbers, if i is greater than j, then i2 is
greater than j2.
 sequences

*A discussion of sets and constructive specification (slides 20 - 24) is no longer included within
SEPA, 7/e, but is included here for those who are unfamiliar with the basic concepts.

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 Sets and Constructive Specification
 A set is a collection of objects or elements and
is used as a cornerstone of formal methods.
 Enumeration
• {C++, Pascal, Ada, COBOL, Java}
• #{C++, Pascal, Ada, COBOL, Java} implies cardinality = 5
 Constructive set specification is preferable to
enumeration because it enables a succinct definition
of large sets.
• {x, y : N | x + y = 10 (x, y2)}

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 Set Operators
 A specialized set of symbology is used to represent set and
logic operations.
 Examples
• The P operator is used to indicate membership of a set. For example,
the expression
• xPX
• The operators , , and # take sets as their operands. The predicate
• A,B
• has the value true if the members of the set A are contained in the set
B and has the value false otherwise.
 The union operator, <, takes two sets and forms a set that contains
all the elements in the set with duplicates eliminated.
• {File1, File2, Tax, Compiler} < {NewTax, D2, D3, File2} is the set
• {Filel, File2, Tax, Compiler, NewTax, D2, D3}

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 Logic Operators
 Another important component of a formal method is logic: the algebra
of true and false expressions.
 Examples:
• V or
• ¬ not
• => implies
 Universal quantification is a way of making a statement about the
elements of a set that is true for every member of the set. Universal
quantification uses the symbol, . An example of its use is
• i, j : N i > j => i2 > j2
 which states that for every pair of values in the set of natural numbers,
if i is greater than j, then i2 is greater than j2.

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 Sequences
 Sequences are designated using angle brackets. For
example, the preceding sequence would normally be
written as
 k Jones, Wilson, Shapiro, Estavezl
 Catenation, X, is a binary operator that forms a
sequence constructed by adding its second operand to
the end of its first operand. For example,
• k 2, 3, 34, 1l X k12, 33, 34, 200 l = k 2, 3, 34, 1, 12, 33, 34, 200 l
 Other operators that can be applied to sequences are
head, tail, front, and last.
• head k 2, 3, 34, 1, 99, 101 l = 2
• tail k 2, 3, 34, 1, 99, 101 l = 73, 34, 1,99, 1018
• last k 2, 3, 34, 1, 99, 101 l = 101
• front k 2, 3, 34, 1, 99, 101 l = 72, 3, 34, 1, 998

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 Formal Specification
 The block handler
 The block handler maintains a reservoir of unused blocks and
will also keep track of blocks that are currently in use. When
blocks are released from a deleted file they are normally added
to a queue of blocks waiting to be added to the reservoir of
unused blocks.
• The state
used, free: P BLOCKS
BlockQueue: seq P BLOCKS
• Data Invariant
used > free = \
used < free = AllBlocks
i: dom BlockQueue BlockQueue i # used
i, j : dom BlockQueue i ≠ j => BlockQueue i > BlockQueue j = \
• Precondition
#BlockQueue > 0
• Postcondition
used' = used \ head BlockQueue
free’ = free < head BlockQueue
BlockQueue' = tail BlockQueue

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 Formal Specification Languages
 A formal specification language is usually composed of
three primary components:
 a syntax that defines the specific notation with which the
specification is represented
 semantics to help define a "universe of objects" [WIN90]
that will be used to describe the system
 a set of relations that define the rules that indicate which
objects properly satisfy the specification
 The syntactic domain of a formal specification language
is often based on a syntax that is derived from standard
set theory notation and predicate calculus.
 The semantic domain of a specification language
indicates how the language represents system
requirements.

These slides are designed to accompany Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 7/e
(McGraw-Hill 2009). Slides copyright 2009 by Roger Pressman. 15