The ACT System: Experiences and Future Enhancements

The ACT-system, which comprises an implementation of the algebraic specification language ACT ONE, an Interpreter, a Persistency Checker and a Pretty-Printer, is a specification environment, which is used for the development of specifications for software systems. Here we focus on the environment of the Interpreter, which includes implementations for the concept of object-variables with assignment and the concept of input and output conversion. The former concept is analogous to variables and assignment as known from programming languages while the latter is equivalent to the concept of input- and output-formats of high-level programming languages. It will be shown that this environment greatly enhances the usability of the Interpreter in the ACT-system. Furthermore a new interpretation technique is proposed, which works with arbitrary algebraic specifications. These concepts together allow testing of all algebraic specifications with initial or free functor semantics as well as using them as prototypes of software systems in a convenient way.

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