Reasoning about Card Tears and Transactions in Java Card

The Java dialect Java Card for programming smartcards contains some features which do not exist in Java. Java Card distinguishes persistent and transient data (data stored in EEPROM and RAM, respectively). Because power to a smartcard can suddenly be interrupted by a so-called card tear, by someone removing the smartcard from the reader, Java Card provides a notion of transaction to ensure that updates of multiple fields in persistent memory can be performed atomically. This paper describes a way to reason about these Java Card specific language features.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: FASE
• Authors: Engelbert Hubbers, Erik Poll
• Keywords: Dialect Java Card, FASE 2004, Java Card, So-called Card Tear, Software Engineering