A Tool for Supporting Requirements Formalization Based on Specification Pattern Knowledge

Despite the effectiveness of requirements formalization in producing accurate requirements documentation, thistechnique can hardly be accepted by software industry mainlydue to the difficulty in manipulating formal notations by practitioners. To handle the challenge, this paper describes aninteractive tool for supporting requirements formalization basedon specification pattern knowledge comprising a set of inter-relatedspecification patterns. Each pattern defines the knowledge forformalizing one kind of function, including derivation knowledgefor guiding the clarification of the function and transformation knowledge for formally representing the clarified function. The tool derives necessary function details of the intendedrequirement through interactions by applying the derivationknowledge and transforms these details into formal specificationsby applying the transformation knowledge.