Writing JML Specifications Using Java 8 Streams

Authors

Yoonsik Cheon, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Zejing Cao, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Khandoker Rahad, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

11-2016

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-16-83

Abstract

JML is a formal behavioral interface specification language for Java to document Java program modules such as classes and interfaces. When composing JML specifications, one frequently writes assertions involving a collection of values. In this paper we propose to use Java 8 streams for writing more concise and cleaner assertions on a collection. The use of streams in JML can be minimal and non-invasive in the conventional style of writing assertions. It can also be holistic to write all assertions in the abstract state defined by streams. We perform a small case study to illustrate our approach and show its effectiveness as well. We then summarize our findings and the lessons that we learned from the case study.