THE B METHOD AND THE COMPONENT-BASED APPROACH

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Petit, Dorian | Poirriez, Vincent | Mariano, Georges

Affiliations: Laboratory of Industrial and Human Automation, Mechanics and Computer Science, Valenciennes University, Valenciennes, France | National Institute for Transport and Safety Research, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to merge two approaches of software development: the component approach and the formal development approach. Developing software components is now a technique widely used by the software industry. These two approaches are not so distant if we consider Bertrand Meyer's opinion: it is more complicated to reuse a component without contracts. One of the difficulties with the design by contract approach is to find the contracts. This difficulty can be removed by the use of the B method. In the B method, the software properties (the contracts) are expressed in the specifications. We present in this paper an approach to generate code in the spirit of the component approach from B specifications.

Keywords: B method, component based development, design by contract

Journal: Journal of Integrated Design & Process Science, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 65-76, 2004