Capturing Informal Requirements as Formal Models

We present a requirements engineering tool and associated methodology that converts natural language and graphical requirements to models expressed in a process algebra formalism. Natural language requirements are automatically converted into the concrete syntax of the process algebra using reconfigurable parsing and transformations. Graphical requirements in the form of finite state diagrams are changed into textual form before parsing and generation of the formal models. Analysis of the formal models by a requirements engineer can lead to iterative refinement of the natural language requirements and the tool configuration. The motivation for this work comes from the possible reduction in reworking when formal methods are used early in the development life cycle. Our framework allows the coexistence of an user-friendly document that is suitable for non-technical users and a formal model suitable for verification and reasoning.

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