Proving programs correct through refinement

Abstract

Program proving must be made applicable to all stages of program development. In particular, in the design phase, proving could prevent a program development based on erroneous or inconsistent design decisions, with its associated high cost of debugging. Furthermore, the proving activity itself would benefit from an early application in the development cycle of a program, because the proof of a program design seems to be simpler than the proof of the final, perhaps optimized, program. The Fisher-Galler algorithm will be used as an example for demonstrating the proof of a program design. An algebraic specification technique is used for describing the design. Details of the proof will be discussed. © 1978 Springer-Verlag.