A formal language ccsl is introduced for describing specifications of classes in object-oriented languages. We show how class specifications in ccsl can be translated into higher order logic. This allows us to reason about these specifications. In particular, it allows us (1) to describe (various) implementations of a particular class specification, (2) to develop the logical theory of a specific class specification, and (3) to establish refinements between two class specifications. We use the (dependently typed) higher order logic of the proof-assistant pvs, so that we have extensive tool support for reasoning about class specifications. Moreover, we describe our own front-end tool to pvs, which generates from ccsl class specifications appropriate pvs theories and proofs of some elementary results.

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This paper unveils and motivates an ambitious programme of hidden algebraic research in software engineering, beginning with our general goals, continuing with an overview of results, and including some future plans. The main contribution is powerful hidden coinduction techniques for proving behavioral correctness of concurrent systems; several mechanical proofs are given using OBJ3. We also show how modularization, bisimulation, transition systems, concurrency and combinations of the functional, constraint, logic and object paradigms fit into hidden algebra. 1. Introduction

We present the first results of a project called LOOP, on formal methods for the object-oriented language Java. It aims at verification of program properties, with support of modern tools. We use our own front-end tool (which is still partly under construction) for translating Java classes into logic, and a back-end theorem prover (namely PVS, developed at SRI) for reasoning. In several examples we will demonstrate how nontrivial properties of Java programs and classes can be proved following this two-step approach.

: This paper is an introduction to recent research on hidden algebra and its application to software engineering; it is intended to be informal and friendly, but still precise. We first review classical algebraic specification for traditional "Platonic" abstract data types like integers, vectors, matrices, and lists. Software engineering also needs changeable "abstract machines," recently called "objects," that can communicate concurrently with other objects through visible "attributes" and state-changing "methods." Hidden algebra is a new development in algebraic semantics designed to handle such systems. Equational theories are used in both cases, but the notion of satisfaction for hidden algebra is behavioral, in the sense that equations need only appear to be true under all possible experiments; this extra flexibility is needed to accommodate the clever implementations that software engineers often use to conserve space and/or time. The most important results in hidden algebra are ...

This note briefly discusses how some of the ideas developed in the theory of coalgebras are used in a front-end tool called LOOP, developed jointly in Dresden and Nijmegen, for reasoning (with a back-end theorem prover) about classes in objectoriented languages. It will describe reasoning both about object-oriented specifications and about JAVA implementations, via examples. 1 Introduction One of the key aspects of object-orientation is that objects, as instances of a class, have a private state, which can only be accessed and modified via the operations (usually called attributes and methods) of the class of the object. It is precisely this aspect which forms the starting point of the coalgebraic analysis of classes and objects in an object-oriented setting, see [10,5]: a class is seen as a coalgebra, and an object of a class as an element of the state space of the coalgebra. More precisely, a coalgebra is an operation of the form c: X ! T (X), where X is the carrier set (or state sp...

Coalgebras for endofunctors C --> C can be used to model classes of object-oriented languages. However, binary methods do not fit directly into this approach. This paper proposes an extension of the coalgebraic framework, namely the use of extended polynomial functors C^op x C --> C . This extension allows the incorporation of binary methods into coalgebraic class specifications. The paper also discusses how to define bisimulation and invariants for coalgebras of extended polynomial functors and proves many standard results. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. 03E20, 03G30, 68Q55, 68Q65.

This paper investigates the notion of dialgebra, which generalises the notions of algebra and coalgebra. We show that many (co)algebraic notions and results can be generalised to dialgebras, and investigate the essential dierences between (co)algebras and arbitrary dialgebras.

This paper describes the basic structures in the denotational and axiomatic semantics of sequential Java, both from a monadic and a coalgebraic perspective. This semantics is an abstraction of the one used for the verification of (sequential) Java programs using proof tools in the LOOP project at the University of Nijmegen. It is shown how the monadic perspective gives rise to the relevant computational structure in Java (composition, extension and repetition), and how the coalgebraic perspective o#ers an associated program logic (with invariants, bisimulations, and Hoare logics) for reasoning about the computational structure provided by the monad.

: This paper outlines a research programme in algebraic engineering. It starts with a review of classical algebraic specification for abstract data types, such as integers, vectors, booleans, and lists. Software engineering also needs abstract machines, recently called "objects," that can communicate concurrently with other objects, and that have local states with visible "attributes" that are changed by inputs. Hidden algebra is a new development in algebraic semantics for such systems; its most important results are powerful hidden coinduction principles for proving behavioral properties, especially behavioral refinement. 1 Introduction In view of the title of this conference, I should confess to being an algebraic engineer in (perhaps) the following four different senses: 1. I use algebra to build real software systems. 2. I build huge algebras to help build software systems. 3. I build software tools to help deal with these huge algebras. 4. I build new kinds of algebra, to get be...