Putting into practice a formal method to verify properties of active rules based on rewriting logic

The integration of activity in databases through active rules requires certain properties such as termination and confluence. The authors propose to use a formalism based on rewriting logic to describe an object-oriented system. The study of the behavior of the active rules then rests on the study of rewrite systems. They explore an approach by simulation to verify termination and confluence. This approach uses the ELAN language and advantageously exploits the notion of ELAN strategy. The efficiency of this approach is improved thanks to a preliminary stratification of rules through a specific algorithm. Furthermore, this stratification facilitates an interactive design of the rules. The application of this proposition is illustrated by an example initially described with OMT. This approach, which verifies that the behavior of active rules is consistent with specifications, has its natural place in a development environment for active applications.