Contracts: from analysis to C++ implementation

Abstract

Standard C++ does not provide mechanisms for working with assertions in the spirit of design by contract (DBC) as proposed by B. Meyer (1996; 1992). We earlier developed a set of techniques and tools facilitating the prototyping of object oriented architectures based on the idea of design by contract (R. Ploesch, 1997; 1998). As it is crucial for us to support evolutionary prototyping, we need to provide mechanisms to automatically transform the classes and assertions specified in our prototyping environment to C++. Therefore we developed a system that automatically transforms classes and assertions of our prototyping system to C++. As a side effect, our environment provides general mechanisms for realizing design by contract for the programming language C++.