Understanding Z: A Specification Language and its Formal Semantics

By providing a formal semantics for Z, this book justifies the claim that Z is a precise specification language, and provides a standard framework for understanding Z specifications. It makes a detailed theoretical comparison between schemas, the Z construct for breaking specifications into modules, and the analogous facilities in other languages such as CLEAR and ASL. The final chapter contains a number of studies in Z style, showing that Z can be used for a wide variety of specification tasks.