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A Categorical Approach to Structuring and...
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A Categorical Approach to Structuring and Promoting Z Specifications

Abstract

In this paper, we study a formalisation of specification structuring mechanisms used in Z. These mechanisms are traditionally understood as syntactic transformations. In contrast, we present a characterisation of Z structuring mechanisms which takes into account the semantic counterpart of their typical syntactic descriptions, based on category theory. Our formal foundation for Z employs well established abstract notions of logical systems. This setting has a degree of abstraction that enables us to understand what is the precise semantic relationship between schemas obtained from a schema operator and the schemas it is applied to, in particular with respect to property preservation.Our formalisation is a powerful setting for capturing structuring mechanisms, even enabling us to formalise promotion. Also, its abstract nature provides the rigour and flexibility needed to characterise extensions of Z and related languages, in particular the heterogeneous ones.

Authors

Castro PF; Aguirre N; López Pombo CG; Maibaum T

Series

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Volume

7684

Pagination

pp. 73-91

Publisher

Springer Nature

Publication Date

January 28, 2013

DOI

10.1007/978-3-642-35861-6_5

Conference proceedings

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

ISSN

0302-9743

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