Reasoning about interactive systems

Abstract

The unifying ground for interactive programs and component-based systems is the interaction between a user and the system or between a component and its environment. Modeling and reasoning about interactive systems in a formal framework is critical for ensuring the systems' reliability and correctness. A mathematical foundation based on the idea of contracts permits this kind of reasoning. In this paper we study an iterative choice contract statement which models an event loop allowing the user to repeatedly choose from a number of actions an alternative which is enabled and have it executed. We study mathematical properties of iterative choice and demonstrate its modeling capabilities by specifying a component environment which describes all actions the environment can take on a component, and an interactive dialog box permitting the user to make selections in a dialog with the system. We show how to prove correctness of the dialog box with respect to given requirements, and develop its refinement allowing more complex functionality and providing wider choice for the user.