Connecting OCL with the Rest of the World
Reiner Hähnle, Aarne Ranta · 2001
The paper addresses the problems of making program specifications written in OCL easier to read and to maintain. The solution proposed is to use the grammar formalism GF to define a high-level abstract grammar of specifications with translations into OCL, logic, and natural languages. A prototype of the solution is illustrated by an example. 1 Introduction Recent work on the Object Constraint Language [11,18] includes suggestions for formal semantics [8,6,13,15,16] and attempts at a closer integration with other parts of the UML [14,2]. Less attention has been paid so far to the relationship between OCL and the language, in which most software specifications are still written: natural language (NL). As the usage of formal and semi-formal specification languages is becoming more widespread, this conceptual gap between NL specifications and (semi)- formal specifications becomes a significant obstacle to further development. We see the following problems arising: -- Formal Specifi...