Specifying Interaction Constraints of Software Components for Better Understandability and Interoperability

A vital issue in the correct use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components is the proper understanding of their functionality, quality attributes and ways of operation. Traditionally, COTS component vendors provide some of this information in accompanying documentation. However, the documentation is often informal and likely contains ambiguous and inconsistent statements. Even equipped with interface descriptions clearly defining the basic aspects of component use, such as operation signatures and operating platforms, this documentation does not provide a mathematically sound means for addressing the behavioural interoperability issues in component-based system design. In this paper, we propose a formal but user-friendly component specification approach which augments commercial IDLs with the capability of capturing component interoperability requirements. This approach uses unambiguous temporal operators to define sequencing and concurrency constraints between component operati...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ICCBSS
• Authors: Yan Jin, Jun Han
• Keywords: Component Interoperability Requirements, Component Operation Invocations, Component Vendors, ICCBSS 2005, Software Engineering