Propagation Patterns : Abbreviated Speci cations of Cooperative

DRAFT Abstract Object-oriented programs often have a regular structure in that functions are propagated to classes which are connected by part-of and inheritance relations. To abbreviate the description of programs and to organize them eeectively, we propose a propagation model which allows a concise speciication of propagation patterns. Propagation patterns ooer an abstraction mechanism for object-oriented programs that exploits part-of and inheritance relations on classes. A propagation pattern consists of a set of propagation directives. Each propagation directive is speciied by a set of source vertices, an optional set of target vertices, an optional set of required edges and an optional set of bypassing edges. For each vertex to which the function interface is propagated, the function body calls the function recursively for (some of) its parts. A set of overriding functions may replace some of the generated functions. We have implemented propagation patterns for C++ and we are already using them successfully for CASE tool development, including the propagation pattern tool itself.