Transformation Systems for the Integration of Software Specifications

In a software system development process a variety of heterogeneous viewpoint models of the system are constructed for the abstract specification of its functionality and behaviour. These have to be integrated in order to achieve a coherent and consistent global system specification. Transformation systems constitute a formal semantic domain where specification languages conforming to different paradigms can be interpreted, which makes possible a formal semantic integration of heterogeneous viewpoint models. Analogous to graph transformation systems states are described by algebraic structures and behaviour by the ordering of state transformation steps, i.e., changes of the algebraic structures. In contrast with graph transformation..