Bridging the Gap between Algebraic Specification and Object-Oriented Generic Programming

Although generics became quite popular in mainstream object-oriented languages and several specification languages exist that support the description of generic components, conformance relations between object-oriented programs and formal specifications that have been established so far do not address genericity. In this paper we propose a notion of refinement mapping that allows to define correspondences between parameterized specifications and generic Java classes. Based on Such mappings, we put forward a conformance notion useful for the extension of CONGU, a tool-based approach we have been developing to Support runtime conformance checking of Java programs against algebraic specifications, so that it becomes applicable to a more comprehensive range of situations, namely those that appear in the context of a typical Algorithms and Data Structures Course.