Date of Award

12-1991

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Paul D. Bailor, PhD

Abstract

This research develops and implements Visual Refine, a graph-based visualization system, for the Refine wide-spectrum formal specification language and environment developed and marketed by Reasoning Systems, Inc. Refine specifications are represented in the Refine object base as abstract syntax trees (AST). Using these AST representations, one-to-one mappings are defined between nodes of the AST and the graphical icons of Visual Refine. Visual Refine uses these mappings to implement a set of formal transformations. Each transformation is encapsulated within a Refine rule, and this set of rules form the Visual Refine transformation system. The Visual Refine transformation system, in conjunction with Refine object base manipulation facilities, is then used to create graph-based visualizations of Refine specifications. To illustrate that visualization aids in the understanding of a formal specification, Visual Refine is applied to an example Refine specification. Finally, it is shown that the technology developed for Visual Refine is general enough to be applied to any language that can be represented as an AST in the Refine object base. Specifically, the technology is shown to be applicable and beneficial towards formalizing Domain Specific Software Architectures.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GCS-ENG-91D-12

DTIC Accession Number

ADA244205

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