article

Detecting implied scenarios in message sequence chart specifications

Authors:

Sebastian Uchitel,

Jeff MageeAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, Volume 26, Issue 5

Pages 74 - 82

https://doi.org/10.1145/503271.503220

Published: 01 September 2001 Publication History

Abstract

Scenario-based specifications such as Message Sequence Charts (MSCs) are becoming increasingly popular as part of a requirements specification. Scenario describe how system components, the environment and users work concurrently and interact in order to provide system level functionality. Each scenario is a partial story which, when combined with other scenarios, should conform to provide a complete system description. However, although it is possible to build a set of components such that each component behaves in accordance with the set of scenarios, their composition may not provide the required system behaviour. Implied scenarios may appear as a result of unexpected component interaction. In this paper, we present an algorithm that builds a labelled transition system (LTS) behaviour model that describes the closest possible implementation for a specification based on basic and high-level MSCs. We also present a technique for detecting and providing feedback on the existence of implied scenarios. We have integrated these procedures into the Labelled Transition System Analyser (LTSA), which allows for model checking and animation of the behaviour model.

References

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Alur, R., Etessami, K. and Yannakakis, M., Inference of Message Sequence Charts. 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'00). Limerick, Ireland, 2000.

Digital Library

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Broy, M., Kruger, I., Grosu, R. and Scholz, P., From MSCs to Statecharts. Distributed and Parallel Embedded Systems, 1999, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Cobens, J.M.H., Engels, A., Mauw, S. and Reniers, M.A. Formal Semantics of Message Sequence Charts, Eindenhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 1998.

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Harel, D. and Damm, W., LSCs: Breathing Life into Message Sequence Charts. 3rd IFIP Int. Cond. of Formal Methods for Open Object-Based Distributed Systems, New York, 1999, Kluwer Academic.

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Helouet, L. and LeMaigat, P., Decomposition of Message Sequence Charts. 2nd Workshop on SDL and MSC, Grenoble, France, 2000.

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Holzmann, G.J. and Peled, D. The state of Spin, CAV'96, LNCS 1102, 1996.

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ITU-T Recommendation Z.120. Message Sequence Charts (MSC'96), ITU Telecommunication Standardisation Sector, Geneva, 1996.

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Magee, J. and Kramer, J. Concurrency: State Models and Java Programs. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., New York, 1999.

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Magee, J., Kramer, J., Giannakopoulou, D. and Pryce, N., Graphical Animation of Behavior Models. 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'00), Limerick, Ireland, 2000.

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Systa, T. Static and Dynamic Reverse Engineering Techniques for Java Software Systems Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, 2000.

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Uchitel, S. LTSA-MSC Tool., Available at http://wwwdse. doc.ic.ac.uk/~su2/Synthesis/ Department of Computing, Imperial College, 2001.

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Uchitel, S. and Kramer, J., A Workbench for Synthesising Behaviour Models from Scenarios. 23rd International Conferecne on Software Engineering (ICSE'01), Toronto, Canada, 2001.

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Uchitel, S., Magee, J. and Kramer, J. Detecting Implied Scenarios in MSCs Using LTSA, Department of Computing, Imperial College, 2001.

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Van Lamsweerde, A. and Willemet, L. Inferring Declarative Requirements Specifications from Operational Scenarios. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 24 (12). 1089-1114.

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Whittle, J. and Schumann, J., Generating Statechart Designs from Scenarios. in 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'00), Limerick, Ireland, 2000.

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Cited By

Daun MBrings JWeyer T(2023)Model inspections in the engineering of collaborative cyber‐physical systems with instance‐level review diagramsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.239235:5Online publication date: 25-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/smr.2392
de Melo CCançado ARodrigues G(2019)Characterization of Implied Scenarios as Families of Common BehaviorJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2019.110425(110425)Online publication date: Sep-2019
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2019.110425
Wang YZhao L(2019)Eliciting user requirements for e-collaboration systemsRequirements Engineering10.1007/s00766-017-0285-724:2(205-229)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00766-017-0285-7
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Detecting implied scenarios in message sequence chart specifications
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Modeling and simulation
    1. Model development and analysis
      1. Model verification and validation
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
      1. Requirements analysis
    2. Software development techniques
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. System description languages
      1. Specification languages

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Reviews

Reviewer: Marian Gheorghe

Scenarios describe how systems components, the environment, and various users work concurrently. Each scenario is a story, providing a partial system description, and all scenarios are combined in order to give a complete system description. Scenarios can combine unexpectedly, and some system behaviors, not present in the scenario specification, may appear in the implementation (these are called implied scenarios). Message sequence charts (MSCs) represent a very popular scenario-based language. This paper presents an algorithm that synthesizes a labeled transition system (LTS) behavior model, which describes the implementation for a scenario-based specification such as basic MSCs and high-level MSCs, and detects the existence of implied scenarios. The investigation presented defines the closest possible implementation for a specification based on basic MSCs and high-level MSCs by extending Alur et al’s approach [1], which has been limited to a set of MSCs that specify a finite set of finite system behaviors. The framework presented integrates with existing labeled transition system analysis, and consequently the synthesized implementation can be analyzed further using model checking safety and liveness properties. It can also be animated using available tools [2]. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes

ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes Volume 26, Issue 5

Sept. 2001

329 pages

ISSN:0163-5948

DOI:10.1145/503271

Issue’s Table of Contents

ESEC/FSE-9: Proceedings of the 8th European software engineering conference held jointly with 9th ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Foundations of software engineering
September 2001
329 pages
ISBN:1581133901
DOI:10.1145/503209
Conference Chairs:
A. Min Tjoa
Vienna Univ. of Technology, Vienna, Austria
,
Volker Gruhn
Univ. of Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany

Copyright © 2001 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 September 2001

Published in SIGSOFT Volume 26, Issue 5

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Cited By

Daun MBrings JWeyer T(2023)Model inspections in the engineering of collaborative cyber‐physical systems with instance‐level review diagramsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.239235:5Online publication date: 25-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/smr.2392
de Melo CCançado ARodrigues G(2019)Characterization of Implied Scenarios as Families of Common BehaviorJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2019.110425(110425)Online publication date: Sep-2019
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2019.110425
Wang YZhao L(2019)Eliciting user requirements for e-collaboration systemsRequirements Engineering10.1007/s00766-017-0285-724:2(205-229)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00766-017-0285-7
Al-Azzani SAl-Natour ABahsoon R(2014)Architecture-Centric Testing for SecurityAgile Software Architecture10.1016/B978-0-12-407772-0.00009-5(245-267)Online publication date: 2014
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-407772-0.00009-5
Bowles JKloul L(2014)A Strongly Consistent Transformation from UML Interactions to PEPA NetsComputational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 201410.1007/978-3-319-09156-3_7(90-105)Online publication date: 2014
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09156-3_7
Fard FFar B(2012)A method for detecting agents that will not cause emergent behavior in agent based systems - A case study in agent based auction systems -2012 IEEE 13th International Conference on Information Reuse & Integration (IRI)10.1109/IRI.2012.6303009(185-192)Online publication date: Aug-2012
https://doi.org/10.1109/IRI.2012.6303009
Kakiuchi YNakagawa THamaguchi KTanimoto TNakanishi M(2011)Symbolic Discord Computation for Efficient Analysis of Message Sequence ChartsIPSJ Transactions on System LSI Design Methodology10.2197/ipsjtsldm.4.2104(210-221)Online publication date: 2011
https://doi.org/10.2197/ipsjtsldm.4.210
Song IJeon SHan ABae D(2011)An approach to identifying causes of implied scenarios using unenforceable ordersInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2010.11.00753:6(666-681)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2010.11.007
Goldsby HCheng B(2010)Automatically discovering properties that specify the latent behavior of UML modelsProceedings of the 13th international conference on Model driven engineering languages and systems: Part I10.5555/1926458.1926488(316-330)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1926458.1926488
Al-Azzani SBahsoon RLee SMonga MJürjens J(2010)Using implied scenarios in security testingProceedings of the 2010 ICSE Workshop on Software Engineering for Secure Systems10.1145/1809100.1809103(15-21)Online publication date: 2-May-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1809100.1809103
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