Verifying Java Object Invariants At Runtime

摘要

An object invariant consisting of a set of properties that must hold for all instances of a class at any time is usually used in object-oriented design. However, verifying object invariants at runtime is always a challenging task in software verification. This paper proposes a method for verifying invariants of Java objects at runtime using AOP. Suppose that a software application is designed using UML models and its constraints are specified in OCL expressions, the software is then implemented, by default, using the UML design. They propose to construct verifiable aspects which are automatically generated from OCL constraints. These aspects can be woven into Java code to check whether object invariants are violated at runtime. Benefiting from AOP in separation of crosscut-ting concerns and weaving mechanisms, generated aspects can do the verification task whenever values of objects' attributes are changed. A Verification Aspect Generator (VAG) tool has been developed allowing the automatic generation of verifying aspects from the UML/OCL constraints.