THE SPECIFICATION SYSTEM X-SPEX — INTRODUCTION AND EXPERIENCE

Abstract The topic of this paper is a description of the requirement specification system X-SPEX which is being developed as a joint project between the Halden Project and VTT in Finland. This system consists of a formal specification language, X, and a program for computer assisted specification, SPEX. The building blocks of the X-language and the relations between them are described, as well as the various options the SPEX system gives for conversational specification and specification analysis. X-SPEX is applied to different test cases, and the experience from these is described. The impact the use of X-SPEX will have on software reliability is also discussed.