ABSTRACT: Full Description

Abstract:

This tutorial introduces ESC/Java2 and the JML annotation language.
The [4]Java Modeling Language (JML) is a behavioral interface specification language that can be used to specify the behavior of Java modules. It combines the Design by Contract approach of Eiffel and the model-based specification approach of the Larch family of interface specification languages, with some elements of the refinement calculus. JML has a Java-based syntax and semantics, thus is easy to learn for Java programmers.

[5]ESC/Java2 is a tool that checks that a program is consistent with its annotation. It also detects, at compile time, common programming errors that ordinarily are not detected until run time, and sometimes not even then; for example, null dereference errors, array bounds errors, type cast errors, and race conditions. While ESC/Java uses a theorem prover, it feels to a programmer more like a powerful type checker.
Because JML is familiar to Java programmers, and ESC/Java2 just feels like a typechecker, we believe that they are an excellent way to gently introduce programmers to formal methods.