Transformation of Applicative Specifications into Imperative ...

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1. Formulation of a set transformation rules that can be applied to a
concrete applicative RSL specification returning a concrete imperative
RSL specification.
2. Verification of the correctness of this set of transformation rules.
3. Development of a tool, the transformer, that can carry out the transformation
from concrete applicative specification into concrete imperative
specification using the formulated set of transformation rules.
1.4 Requirements of the Project
The objectives listed above can be reached in many ways, but in order for
the final transformer to be useful some requirements have to be fulfilled:
• The transformation rules should be constructed such that the output
is readable and recognizable.
Reason: If the resulting imperative RSL specification is to be further
developed it is necessary that the specification is readable. Furthermore
it should be possible to recognize the applicative specification in
the corresponding imperative specification in order to ease an iterative
development process.
• The resulting imperative specifications should be a syntactically correct
RSL specifications without any references to the original applicative
specifications.
Reason: When using the tool it should not be necessary to correct
the output. The idea behind a tool is to save time and to reduce the
number of errors.
• The transformer has to be constructed such that it can be maintained
and extended easily.
Reason: As the first version of the tool should only cover a subset of
RSL it should be easy to extend, such that it, in time, covers all parts
of RSL. Furthermore, it should be easy to adapt the tool to possible
future changes in RSL.
1.5 Prerequisites for Reading the Report
There is a number of prerequisites needed in order to get the full understanding
of this report:
• A good knowledge of RSL and the different styles of RSL specification.
• A knowledge of the mathematical foundations of RAISE.
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