Formal Specification in Software Reuse Designs: an Object-Oriented Database Example

Huan-Chao Keh; Timothy K.  Shih

doi:10.6180/jase.1998.1.2.03

Formal Specification in Software Reuse Designs: an Object-Oriented Database Example

Computer Science and Information Engineering

Huan-Chao Keh¹ and Timothy K. Shih¹

¹Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taiwan 25137, R.O.C.

Received: October 14, 1998
Accepted: November 23, 1998
Publication Date: November 23, 1998

Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.6180/jase.1998.1.2.03

ABSTRACT

The advantages of using a formal specification are in its precise definition of object properties and its declarative description of operations of a system. The Z notation is used widely in the literature of formal system designs and the research of language semantics. In line with the rapid growth of multimedia omputation research, we use the Z notation to describe a multimedia database that supports the reuse of multimedia presentations. The database consists of two layers: the frame layer and the resource layer. A frame group in the first layer is the basic presentation unit to be reused. A resource group in the second layer is a collection of resources to be used by a frame, or a frame group. In the hierarchy, we use four types of links to group frames and/or resources. The main contribution of this paper is in its reuse mechanism of multimedia objects in a multimedia database.

Keywords: Multimedia Database, Object Reuse, Multimedia Presentation, Z Notation, Formal Specification

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