Supporting the analyst when reasoning on requirements specifications for real-time and distributed systems

Abstract

Formal methods are being advocated for the design of complex software systems, like real-time and distributed systems: they provide clear semantics and allow (possibly automated) calculations to deduce properties from a system description. In practice, especially for requirements specification languages, formally analysing such descriptions may not be easily achievable. We sketch a toolset for assisting the analyst in his/her task of analysing a requirements specification. The basic idea of the approach is to provide automated and intuitive support for exploring the specifications and gaining an initial understanding of them before it is possible to reason formally about them (if it really pays-off as, in the exploration process, errors may already be uncovered).