Automated Generation of Web Service Stubs Using LTL Satisfiability Solving

Given a web service W , a stub is a simple service S intended to impersonate W and simulate some of its input-output patterns. When W ’s behaviour is represented by a logic formula φ, S can use a satisfiability solver to drive the simulation and generate valid messages compliant with φ. A satisfiability solver for a variant of first-order temporal logic, called LTL-FO, is described. Using a chain of existing, off-the-shelf tools, a stub can be generated from a set of LTL-FO formulæ expressing a wide range of constraints, including message sequences, parameter values, and interdependencies between both. This, in turn, produces a faithful simulation of the original service that can be used for development and testing.