DISI Dipartimento di Informatica e Scienze dell'Informazione


Very abstract Specifications: A formalism Independent Approach

M. Cerioli and G. Reggio .

Mathematical Structures in Computer Science. To appear, 1997.

Two operations are presented for a modular approach to the definition of frameworks for rigorous development of software, formally represented as institutions. The first one generalize models, allowing them to have more structure than the minimal required by their declared signatures, as it happens for software modules, having local routines that do not appear in their interface. The second one extends sentences, and their interpretation in models, allowing sentences on richer signatures to be used as formulae for poorer ones. Combining the application of these operations, powerful institutions can be defined, like those for very abstract entities, or for hyper-loose algebraic specifications. The compatibility of different sequential applications of these operations and properties of the resulting institutions are studied as well. This is an extended version of Institutions for Very Abstract Specifications .

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