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Structuring Retrenchments in B by Decomposition

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FME 2003: Formal Methods (FME 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2805))

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Abstract

Simple retrenchment is briefly reviewed in the B language of J.-R. Abrial [1] as a liberalization of classical refinement, for the formal description of application developments too demanding for refinement. This work initiates the study of the structuring of retrenchment-based developments in B by decomposition. A given coarse-grained retrenchment relation between specifications is decomposed into a family of more fine-grained retrenchments. The resulting family may distinguish more incisively between refining, approximately refining, and non-refining behaviours. Two decomposition results are given, each sharpening a coarse-grained retrenchment within a particular syntactic structure for operations at concrete and abstract levels. A third result decomposes a retrenchment exploiting structure latent in both levels. The theory is illustrated by a simple example based on an abstract model of distributed computing, and methodological aspects are considered.

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Poppleton, M., Banach, R. (2003). Structuring Retrenchments in B by Decomposition. In: Araki, K., Gnesi, S., Mandrioli, D. (eds) FME 2003: Formal Methods. FME 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2805. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45236-2_44

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45236-2_44

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