Formalizing DSL semantics for reasoning and conformance testing
conference paper
A Domain Specific Language (DSL) focuses on the essential concepts in a certain problem domain, thus abstracting from low-level implementation details. In combination with code generators, DSLs bring software development closer to domain requirements. The development of DSLs usually centers around the grammar and a code generator; there is little attention for the semantics of the DSL. However, a formal semantics is essential for reasoning about specifications in terms of the DSL (i.e., DSL instances). We argue that the semantics should be expressed independent of a code generator. Thus semantic issues can be revealed that could otherwise remain undetected. We also use the semantics to define the conformance of an implementation to a DSL instance, and to automatically test conformance of the (generated) implementation code to a DSL instance. We illustrate our approach using an industrial prototype DSL for collision prevention. cop. 2014 Springer International Publishing.
TNO Identifier
516485
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10431-7_7
ISSN
03029743
ISBN
9783319104300
Publisher
Springer Verlag
Source title
12th International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods, SEFM 2014, 1 September 2014 through 5 September 2014, Grenoble
Pages
81-95
Files
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