Delta-Oriented Monitor Specification

Abstract

Delta-oriented programming allows software developers to define software product lines as variations of a common code base, where variations are expressed as so-called program deltas. Monitor-oriented programming (MOP) provides a mechanism to execute functionality based on the execution history of the program; this is useful, e.g., for the purpose of runtime verification and for enforcing security policies. In this work we discuss how delta-oriented programming and MOP can benefit from each other in the Abstract Behavior Specification Language (ABS) through a new approach we call Delta-oriented Monitor Specification (DMS). We use deltas over monitor definitions to concisely capture protocol changes induced by feature combinations, and propose a notation to denote these deltas. In addition, we explore the design space for expressing runtime monitors as program deltas in ABS. A small case study shows that our approach successfully avoids code duplication in monitor specifications and that those specifications can evolve hand in hand with feature definitions.

Publication
Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation
Date