Evolution and runtime monitoring of software systems

Abstract

Software evolution is a critical and inevitable stage in the life cycle of all software systems. We propose an evolution technique based on aspect-oriented programming. In our technique, join points guide where the modification should be made, and inter-type declaration and advice describe the expected modification. To check whether the software system resulting from the evolution based on AOP technique behaves as expected by system requirements, we propose a runtime monitoring technique for verifying aspect-oriented programs dynamically. In our technique, the valuable information about desired dynamic behaviors of the system is extracted through animating the formal specification of the system. Meanwhile, the information about dynamic behaviors of concrete implementations of the target system is obtained through program debugging. Base on the attained information from both sides, the judgement on the consistency of the concrete implementation with the formal specification is timely made while the system is running. Copyright © (2007) by Knowledge Systems Institute (KSI).