Translating VDM to Alloy

The Vienna Development Method is one of the longest established formal methods. Initial software design is often best described using implicit specifications but limited tool support exists to help with the difficult task of validating that such specifications capture their intended meaning. Traditionally, theorem provers are used to prove that specifications are correct but this process is highly dependent on expert users. Alternatively, model finding has proved to be useful for validation of specifications. The Alloy Analyzer is an automated model finder for checking and visualising Alloy specifications. However, to take advantage of the automated analysis of Alloy, the model-oriented VDM specifications must be translated into a constraint-based Alloy specifications. We describe how a subset of VDM can be translated into Alloy and how assertions can be expressed in VDM and checked by the Alloy Analyzer.