ADA: Reusable components for the construction of robust programs by means of algebraic specifications of abstract data types

Algebraic specifications of abstract types, taking account of genericity and exception handling, are used here as a guideline to derive reusable Ada components. This derivation is facilitated by an automatic tool which builds Ada package skeletons from the corresponding algebraic specification. The development of the Ada code considers two different levels of abstraction : the algebraic specification level, involving a specification language and the implementation level, involving the Ada language . We justify the translation of the algebraic specifiactions, expressed in the Pluss language, into valid Ada constructs. The fact of considering parmeterized algebraic specification of abstract data types and exception handling features assure the construction of robust and reusable components, independently from the implementation language used. The major goal of this work is to show that algebraic specifications may be practically used in software development, within an assisted program construction context.