Review of Type Checking and Scope Rules of the Specification Language Z,
Abstract
The purpose of this report is to review in detail the type checking and scope rules for the specification language Z. At present no definitive description of the language exists, although it is sufficiently well defined for the informal use which is currently made of it. The production of tools to process the language requires a complete definition during the production of which a number of decisions are made concerning various compromises between mathematical elegance and efficiency of implementation. It is the purpose of this report to review these in detail, using as a basis the syntax developed by King et al (1987, see also Sufrin 1986). This will be referred to as the standard syntax. Rather than following this language definition mechanically some changes have been made. This report is concerned particularly with tool implementation, so a version of the syntax has been produced enabling syntax and type checking to be completed in one pass. Changes introduced under this heading do not affect the appearance of the language, but in some cases a syntactic check is replaced by a semantic check. In some cases variations have been introduced which are a matter of personal preference. The production of variant languages in this way is actually a necessary step towards the goal of the production of a robust and usable language standard. Keywords: Great Britain.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA193795
Entities
People
- C. T. Sennett
Organizations
- Royal Signals and Radar Establishment