학술논문

Extending OCL with null-references : towards a formal semantics for OCL 2.1
Document Type
Conference
Source
Proceedings of the 2009 international conference on Models in Software Engineering. :261-275
Subject
HOL-OCL
OCL
UML
formal semantics
null reference
Language
English
Abstract
From its beginnings, OCL is based on a strict semantics for undefinedness, with the exception of the logical connectives of type Boolean that constitute a three-valued propositional logic. Recent versions of the OCL standard added a second exception element, which, similar to the null references in object-oriented programming languages, is given a non-strict semantics. Unfortunately, this extension has been done in an ad hoc manner, which results in several inconsistencies and contradictions. In this paper, we present a consistent formal semantics (based on our HOL-OCL approach) that includes such a non-strict exception element. We discuss the possible consequences concerning class diagram semantics as well as deduction rules. The benefits of our approach for the specification-pragmatics of design level operation contracts are demonstrated with a small case-study.

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