Hierarchical Speci cation and Veri cation of Architectural Design Patterns

Architectural design patterns capture architectural design experience and provide abstract solutions to recurring architectural design problems. Their description is usually expressed informally and it is not veri ed whether the proposed speci cation indeed solves the original design problem. As a consequence, an architect cannot fully rely on the speci cation when implementing a pattern to solve a certain problem. To address this issue, we propose an approach for the speci cation and veri cation of architectural design patterns. Our approach is based on interactive theorem proving and leverages the hierarchical nature of patterns to foster reuse of veri cation results. The following paper presents FACTum, a methodology and corresponding speci cation techniques to support the formal speci cation of patterns. Moreover, it describes an algorithm to map a given FACTum speci cation to a corresponding Isabelle/HOL theory and shows its soundness. Finally, the paper demonstrates the approach by verifying versions of three widely used patterns: the singleton, the publisher-subscriber, and the blackboard pattern.