A theory of contracts for Web services

Castagna, G., Gesbert, N. and Padovani, L. (2009) A theory of contracts for Web services. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 31(5), (doi: 10.1145/1538917.1538920)

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Publisher's URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1538917.1538920

Abstract

<p>Contracts are behavioral descriptions of Web services. We devise a theory of contracts that formalizes the compatibility of a client with a service, and the safe replacement of a service with another service. The use of contracts statically ensures the successful completion of every possible interaction between compatible clients and services.</p> <p>The technical device that underlies the theory is the filter, which is an explicit coercion preventing some possible behaviors of services and, in doing so, make services compatible with different usage scenarios. We show that filters can be seen as proofs of a sound and complete subcontracting deduction system which simultaneously refines and extends Hennessy's classical axiomatization of the must testing preorder. The relation is decidable, and the decision algorithm is obtained via a cut-elimination process that proves the coherence of subcontracting as a logical system.</p> <p>Despite the richness of the technical development, the resulting approach is based on simple ideas and basic intuitions. Remarkably, its application is mostly independent of the language used to program the services or the clients. We outline the practical aspects of our theory by studying two different concrete syntaxes for contracts and applying each of them to Web services languages. We also explore implementation issues of filters and discuss the perspectives of future research this work opens.</p>

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Gesbert, Dr Nils
Authors: Castagna, G., Gesbert, N., and Padovani, L.
Subjects:Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
Journal Name:ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems
Publisher:ACM, Inc
ISSN:0164-0925

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