A formal software specification tool using the entity-relationship model

Abstract

Software engineering, like any other engineering field, needs to use formal methods to prove the reliability of its products and optimise their production and maintenance. In order to do that, software specification needs to be expressed in a language whose vocabulary, syntax and semantics are formally defined. These languages can be a federating formalism in information systems for data structures and dynamics. Formal specifications may then be automatically processed and software tools can be built to assist their development. Nevertheless, little effort has been devoted by research to tool support, yet such support is essential if specifications are to be used in industry. Within this perspective, we propose a support tool that uses tan extended Entity-Relationship model and a rule language as an interface for developing formal software specifications.