An authoring tool for informal and formal requirements specifications

Abstract

We describe foundations and design principles of a tool that supports authoring of informal and formal software requirements specifications simultaneously and from a single source. The tool is an attempt to bridge the gap between completely informal requirements specifications (as found in practice) and formal ones (as needed in formal methods). The user is supported by an interactive syntax-directed editor, parsers and linearizers. As a formal specification language we realize the Object Constraint Language, a substandard of the UML, on the informal side a fragment of English. The implementation is based on the Grammatical Framework, a generic tool that combines linguistic and logical methods.