Specifying Software

Book excerpt: Provides an innovative hands-on introduction to techniques for specifying the behaviour of software components. It is primarily intended for use as a text book for a course in the 2nd or 3rd year of Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs, but it is also suitable for self-study. Using this book will help the reader improve programming skills and gain a sound foundation and motivation for subsequent courses in advanced algorithms and data structures, software design, formal methods, compilers, programming languages, and theory. The presentation is based on numerous examples and case studies appropriate to the level of programming expertise of the intended readership. The main topics covered are techniques for using programmer-friendly assertional notations to specify, develop, and verify small but non-trivial algorithms and data representations, and the use of state diagrams, grammars, and regular expressions to specify and develop recognizers for formal languages.