Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

skip to main content
article
Free access

An example of hierarchical design and proof

Published: 01 December 1978 Publication History

Abstract

Hierarchical programming is being increasingly recognized as helpful in the construction of large programs. Users of hierarchical techniques claim or predict substantial increases in productivity and in the reliability of the programs produced. In this paper we describe a formal method for hierarchical program specification, implementation, and proof. We apply this method to a significant list processing problem and also discuss a number of extensions to current programming languages that ease hierarchical program design and proof.

References

[1]
Boyer, R.S., and Moore, JS. Private communication, June 1977.
[2]
Boyer, R.S., and Moore, JS. A lemma driven automatic theorem prover for recursive function theory. Proc. Int. Joint Conf. Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 1977.
[3]
BurstaU, R.M. Proving properties of programs by structural induction. Comptr. J. 12, 1 (Jan. 1969), 41-48.
[4]
Dalai, O.J., Mylirliaug, B., and Nygaard, K. Common base language, S-22. Norwegian Comptng. Ctr., Oslo, Norway, Oct. 1970.
[5]
Dahl, O.J., Dijkstra, E.W., and Hoare, C.A.R. Structured Programming. Academic Press, New York, 1972.
[6]
Deutsch, L.P. An interactive program verifier. Ph.D. Th., Dept. of Comptr. Sci., U. of California, Berkeley, 1973.
[7]
Good, D.I. Provable programming. Proc. Int. Conf. Reliable Software, SIGPLAN Notices (ACM) 10, 6 (June 1975), 411-419.
[8]
Guttag, J. Abstract data types and the development of data structures. Comm. ACM 20, 6 (June 1977), 396-404.
[9]
Hoare, C.A.R. Proof of correctness of data representations. A cta Informatica 1, 4 (1972), 271-281.
[10]
Hoare, C.A.R., and Wirth, N. An axiomatic definition of the programming language PASCAL. Acta lnformatica 2, 4 (1973), 335-355.
[11]
Ichbiah, J.D., et al. The system implementation language LIS. Tech. Rep. 4549, E/EN, Compagnie Internationale pour l'Informatique, Louveciennes, France, Dec. 1974.
[12]
Igarashi, S., London, R.L., and Luckham, D.C. Automatic program verification I: A logical basis and its implementation. Acta Informatica 1, 4 (1975), 145-182.
[13]
An appraisal of program specifications. Computation Structures. Group Memo 141-1, Lab. for Comptr. Sci., M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass., April 1977.
[14]
Liskov, B., and ZiUes, S. Programming with abstract data types. Proc. ACM SIGPLAN Conf. Very High Level Languages, SIGPLAN Notices (ACM) 9, 4 (April 1974), 50-59.
[15]
Liskov, B., and Zilles, S. Specification techniques for data abstraction. IEEE Trans. Software Eng. SE-1, 1 (March 1975), 7-19.
[16]
McCarthy, J. A basis for a mathematical theory of computation. In Computer Programming and Formal Systems, Braffort and Hirschberg, Eds., North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1963, pp. 33-70.
[17]
McCarthy, J., et al. LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1962.
[18]
Manna, Z., Ness, S., and Vuillemin, J. Inductive methods for proving properties of programs. Comm. A CM 16, 8 (Aug. 1973), 491-502.
[19]
Moore, JS. The Interlisp virtual machine specification. Rep. CSL 76-5, Xerox Palo Alto Res. Ctr., Palo Alto, Calif., Sept. 1976.
[20]
-Morris, J. Protection in programming languages. Comm. A CM 16, 1 (Jan. 1973), 15-21.
[21]
Morris, J.M. Types are not sets. Proc. ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Boston, Mass., Oct. 1973, pp. 120-124.
[22]
Neumann, P.G., et al. A provably secure operating'system: The system, its applications, and proofs. Final Rep., SRI Proj. 4332, SRI Int., Menlo Park, Calif., Feb. 1977.
[23]
Palme, J. Protected program modules in Simula 67. Res. Inst. of Nat. Defense, Stockholm, Sweden, July 1973.
[24]
Parnas, D.L. A technique for software module specification with examples. Comm. ACM 15, 5 (May 1972), 330-336.
[25]
Parnas, D.L. On the criteria to be used in decomposing systems into modules. Comm. ACM 15, 12 (Dec. 1972), 1053-1058.
[26]
Robinson, L., and Levitt, K.N. Proof techniques for hierarchically structured programs. Comm. ACM 20, 4 (April 1977), 271-283.
[27]
Robinson, L., et al. On attaining reliable software for a secure operating system. Proc. Int. Conf. Reliable Software, SIGPLAN Notices (ACM) 10, 6 (June 1975), 267-284.
[28]
Roubine, O., and Robinson, L. SPECIAL Reference Manual. Tech. Rep. CSL-45, SRI Project 4828, SRI Int., Menlo Park, Calif., 3rd ed., Jan. 1977.
[29]
Weghreit, B. The treatment of data types in EL 1. Comm. A CM 17, 5 (May 1974), 251-264.
[30]
Wegbreit, B., and Spitzen, J. M. Proving properties of complex data structures. J. ACM 23, 2 (April 1976), 389-396.
[31]
Wirth, N. Modula: A language for modular multiprogramming. Software--Practice and Experience 7 (1977), 3-35.
[32]
Wulf, W.A. ALPHARD: Toward a language to support structured programs. Comptr. Sci. Dept., Carnegie-Mellon U., Pittsburgh, Pa., April 1974.
[33]
Yourdon, E., and Constantine, L.L. Structured Design. Yourdon Press, New York, 1975.

Cited By

View all
  • (2007)Information system design methodologyJournal of the American Society for Information Science10.1002/asi.463031010231:1(1-24)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2007
  • (2006)Programming by successive refinement of data abstractionsSoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.438010040210:4(249-263)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2006
  • (2005)Universal realization, persistent interconnection and implementation of abstract modulesAutomata, Languages and Programming10.1007/BFb0012775(265-281)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2005
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM  Volume 21, Issue 12
Dec. 1978
89 pages
ISSN:0001-0782
EISSN:1557-7317
DOI:10.1145/359657
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 December 1978
Published in CACM Volume 21, Issue 12

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. data abstraction
  2. hierarchical structures
  3. program verification
  4. software modules
  5. specification

Qualifiers

  • Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)115
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)9
Reflects downloads up to 23 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2007)Information system design methodologyJournal of the American Society for Information Science10.1002/asi.463031010231:1(1-24)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2007
  • (2006)Programming by successive refinement of data abstractionsSoftware: Practice and Experience10.1002/spe.438010040210:4(249-263)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2006
  • (2005)Universal realization, persistent interconnection and implementation of abstract modulesAutomata, Languages and Programming10.1007/BFb0012775(265-281)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2005
  • (2005)Probabilistic analysis of set operations with constant-time set equality testAdvances in Computing and Information — ICCI '9010.1007/3-540-53504-7_62(62-71)Online publication date: 7-Jun-2005
  • (2005)Lazy memo-functionsFunctional Programming Languages and Computer Architecture10.1007/3-540-15975-4_34(129-146)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2005
  • (2003)Selective memoizationACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/640128.60413338:1(14-25)Online publication date: 15-Jan-2003
  • (2003)Selective memoizationProceedings of the 30th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages10.1145/604131.604133(14-25)Online publication date: 15-Jan-2003
  • (1999)Purely functional, real-time deques with catenationJournal of the ACM10.1145/324133.32413946:5(577-603)Online publication date: 1-Sep-1999
  • (1995)Persistent lists with catenation via recursive slow-downProceedings of the twenty-seventh annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing10.1145/225058.225090(93-102)Online publication date: 29-May-1995
  • (1995)Formal Verification for Fault-Tolerant ArchitecturesIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/32.34582721:2(107-125)Online publication date: 1-Feb-1995
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Login options

Full Access

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media