Method of analysing extended finite-state machine specifications

Formal specifications are the basis for automated verification and implementation in communication software. The paper gives a method of dynamic analysis for modular specifications which is based on symbolic execution and reachability analysis. Symbolic execution is a technique for static analysis and applied first to the specification. It is effective in detecting syntactic and semantic errors. A form of reachability analysis, called limited reachability, is used to dynamically analyse the intermodule communication. It has two applications: combining modules and detecting any errors in intermodule communication. The technique is first applied to the specifications in a nondeterministic finite-state machine model and then applied to an extended finite-state machine model for which two standard formal description languages exist.