A Tool for Supporting Requirements Formalization Based on Specification Pattern Knowledge

Despite the effectiveness of requirements formalization in producing accurate requirements documentation, this technique can hardly be accepted by software industry mainly due to the difficulty in manipulating formal notations by practitioners. To handle the challenge, this paper describes an interactive tool for supporting requirements formalization based on specification pattern knowledge comprising a set of inter-related specification patterns. Each pattern defines the knowledge for formalizing one kind of function, including derivation knowledge for guiding the clarification of the function and transformation knowledge for formally representing the clarified function. The tool derives necessary function details of the intended requirement through interactions by applying the derivation knowledge and transforms these details into formal specifications by applying the transformation knowledge.