A NEW APPROACH TO ADT SPECIFICATION SUPPORT BASED ON REUSE OF SIMILARADT BY THE APPLICATION OF CASE-BASED REASONING

Data Type (ADT) is a powerful tool having a very good mathematic basis called many-sorted algebra and is also combined into several Formal D escription Techniques (FDTs). By using ADT, a protocol or a software s ystem can be specified in a very abstract way. It also facilitates the verification and validation of the specified system. However, in prac tice ADT is rarely used because it is difficult for a non-ADT expert t o specify. As a consequence of this, in order to promote the widesprea d use of ADT and FDT, a support method for ADT specification is necess ary. Unfortunately, there is almost no such a support method so far. W e propose an ADT specification support method in terms of support syst em based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) which is a kind of problem solv ing by reusing solutions of the existing similar problem with some app ropriate modifications. CBR has been used in some researches. But ther e is no research which uses this technique for ADT specification suppo rt so far. The support system can ease the specification of ADT and pr event the user from spending too much time and effort in specifying th e whole ADT from the beginning. Our support system consists of four pa rts: (1) Case base of ADTs; (2) Requirement Acquisition Template; (3) Search mechanism for finding the most similar case in (1); (4) Modifie r for modifying the retrieved case to meet the requirement of user. Am ong these parts, the core of the support system is the search mechanis m which is based on the definition of similarity of ADTs. In this pape r, we first propose an ADT specification model which defines a data ca rrier part of an ADT as a combination of constructors of four patterns . Based on the specification model, a similarity definition is given. Furthermore, we have designed the support system. Finally, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the system, we experimented with data t ypes of service and protocol in the data communication field. From the evaluation, the effectiveness of the system is ensured.