Specifying Interaction Constraints of Software Components for Better Understandability and Interoperability

Abstract

Abstract.A vital issue in the correct use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components is the proper understanding of their functionality, quality attributes and ways of operation. Traditionally, COTS component vendors provide some of this information in accompanying documentation. However, the documentation is often informal and likely contains ambiguous and inconsistent statements. Even equipped with interface descriptions clearly defining the basic aspects of component use, such as operation signatures and operating platforms, this documentation does not provide a mathematically sound means for addressing the behavioural interoperability issues in component-based system design. In this paper, we propose a formal but user-friendly component specification approach which augments commercial IDLs with the capability of capturing component interoperability requirements. This approach uses unambiguous temporal operators to define sequencing and concurrency constraints between component operation invocations. Accordingly, it enables precise specifications of how a component provides its services and the correct way in which its services should be used.

Dynamic Protocol Aggregation and Adaptation for Service-Oriented Computing

“…The FCCC will compose the component FSAs and compute the FSA intersection. An empty intersection implies the existence of conflicting constraints [17]. If such conflict exists, an inconsistency exception will be thrown and handled by the organiser player.…”

Supporting high interoperability of components by adopting an agent-based approach

“…For instance, [13] proposes an approach for integrating software components through instrumentation and reasoning, but the approach is not appropriate for integrating styles or architectures. [21], [7] and [19] discuss different techniques to avoid, remove or tolerate faults resulted from architectural mismatches. [4] and [10] explore means of implementing connectors to wrap and integrate components.…”

“…In [21], a formal but user-friendly component specification approach is proposed, which enables precise specifications of how a component provides its services and the correct way in which its services should be used.…”

“…ABC/ADL [21] and Wright [2] allows users to defined their own connectors, UniCon [26] defines an enumerated set of build-in connectors, and C2 SADL [24] defines all components interconnected via default architectural stylespecific connectors. Component models generally do not allow a component supporting one architectural style to connect with another component supporting a different architectural style.…”

Consistency and interoperability checking for component interaction rules

“…In earlier work [19,20], we have presented a lightweight specification approach and run-time validation tool for component interaction protocols, which combines the practitioner-familiar clause-based description style with formal rigour. The approach is aimed for use by software practitioners and does not require that the users have profound knowledge of formal methods.…”