# Specification * * * <i> Topics: * specifications * abstraction by specification * abstraction functions * representation invariants </i> * * * ## Specification A *specification* is a contract between a *client* of some unit of code and the *implementer* of that code. The most common place we find specifications is as comments in the interface (.mli) files for a module. There, the implementer of the module spells out what the client may and may not assume about the module's behavior. This contract makes it clear who to blame if something goes wrong: Did the client misuse the module? Or did the implementer fail to deliver the promised functionality? Specifications usually involve preconditions and postconditions. The preconditions inform what the client must guarantee about inputs they pass in, and what the implementer may assume about those inputs. The postconditions inform what they client may assume about outputs they receive, and what the implementer must guarantee about those outputs. An implementation *satisfies* a specification if it provides the behavior described by the specification. There may be many possible implementations of a given specification that are feasible. The client may not assume anything about which of those implementations is actually provided. The implementer, on the other hand, gets to provide one of their choice. Good specifications have to balance two conflicting goals; they must be * **sufficiently restrictive**, ruling out implementations that would be useless to clients, as well as * **sufficiently general:**, not ruling out implementations that would be useful to clients. Some common mistakes include not stating enough in preconditions, failing to identify when exceptions will be thrown, failing to specify behavior at boundary cases, writing operational specifications instead of definitional and stating too much in postconditions. Writing good specifications is a skill that you will work to master the rest of your career. It's hard because the language and compiler do nothing to check the correctness of a specification: there's no type system for them, no warnings, etc. (Though there is ongoing research on how to improve specifications and the writing of them.) The specifications you write will be read by other people, and with that reading can come misunderstanding. Reading specifications requires close attention to detail. Specifications should be written quite early. As soon as a design decision is made, document it in a specification. Specifications should continue to be updated throughout implementation. A specification becomes obsolete only when the code it specifies becomes obsolete and is removed from the code base. ## Abstraction by specification We've talked before about how abstraction enables modular programming by hiding the details of implementations. Specifications are a part of that kind of abstraction: they reveal certain information about the behavior of a module without disclosing all the details of the module's implementation. *Locality* is one of the benefits of abstraction by specification. A module can be understood without needing to examine its implementation. This locality is critical in implementing large programs, and even in in implementing smaller programs in teams. No one person can keep the entire system in their head at a time. *Modifiability* is another benefit. Modules can be reimplemented without changing the implementation of other modules or functions. Software libraries depend upon this to improve their functionality without forcing all their clients to rewrite code every time the library is upgraded. Modifiability also enables performance enhancements: we can write simple, slow implementations first, then improve bottlenecks as necessary. ## Documenting data abstractions Let us now consider the use of specification in module *implementations*. The first question we must ask ourselves is who is going to read the comments written in module implementations. Because we are going to work hard to allow module clients to program against the module while reading only its interface, clearly clients are not the intended audience. Rather, the purpose of implementation comments is to explain the implementation to other implementers or maintainers of the module. This is done by writing comments that convince the reader that the implementation correctly implements its interface. It is inappropriate to copy the specifications of functions found in the module interface into the module implementation. Copying runs the risk of introducing inconsistency as the program evolves, because programmers don't keep the copies in sync. Copying code and specifications is a major source (if not *the* major source) of program bugs. In any case, implementers can always look at the interface for the specification. Implementation comments fall into two categories. The first category arises because a module implementation may define new types and functions that are purely internal to the module. If their significance is not obvious, these types and functions should be documented in much the same style that we have suggested for documenting interfaces. Often, as the code is written, it becomes apparent that the new types and functions defined in the module form an internal data abstraction or at least a collection of functionality that makes sense as a module in its own right. This is a signal that the internal data abstraction might be moved to a separate module and manipulated only through its operations. The second category of implementation comments is associated with the use of *data abstraction*. Suppose we are implementing an abstraction for a set of items of type 'a. The interface might look something like this:  module type Set = sig type 'a set val empty : 'a set val mem : 'a -> 'a set -> bool val add : 'a -> 'a set -> 'a set val rem : 'a -> 'a set -> 'a set val size: 'a set -> int val union: 'a set -> 'a set -> 'a set val inter: 'a set -> 'a set -> 'a set end  In a real signature for sets, we'd want operations such as map and fold as well, but let's omit these for now for simplicity. There are many ways to implement this abstraction. One easy way is as a list:  (* Implementation of sets as lists with duplicates *) module ListSetDups : Set = struct type 'a set = 'a list let empty = [] let mem = List.mem let add x l = x :: l let rem x = List.filter ((<>) x) let rec size = function | [] -> 0 | h :: t -> size t + (if mem h t then 0 else 1) let union l1 l2 = l1 @ l2 let inter l1 l2 = List.filter (fun h -> mem h l2) l1 end  This implementation has the advantage of simplicity. For small sets that tend not to have duplicate elements, it will be a fine choice. Its performance will be poor for large sets or applications with many duplicates but for some applications that's not an issue. Notice that the types of the functions do not need to be written down in the implementation. They aren't needed because they're already present in the signature, just like the specifications that are also in the signature don't need to be replicated in the structure. Here is another implementation of Set that also uses 'a list but requires the lists to contain no duplicates. This implementation is also correct (and also slow for large sets). Notice that we are using the same representation type, yet some important aspects of the implementation are quite different.  (* Implementation of sets as lists without duplicates *) module ListSetNoDups : Set = struct type 'a set = 'a list let empty = [] let mem = List.mem (* add checks if already a member *) let add x l = if mem x l then l else x :: l let rem x = List.filter ((<>) x) let size = List.length (* size is just length if no duplicates *) let union l1 l2 = (* check if already in other set *) List.fold_left (fun a x -> if mem x l2 then a else x :: a) l2 l1 let inter l1 l2 = List.filter (fun h -> mem h l2) l1 end  An important reason why we introduced the writing of function specifications was to enable *local reasoning*: once a function has a spec, we can judge whether the function does what it is supposed to without looking at the rest of the program. We can also judge whether the rest of the program works without looking at the code of the function. However, we cannot reason locally about the individual functions in the three module implementations just given. The problem is that we don't have enough information about the relationship between the concrete type (int list) and the corresponding abstract type (set). This lack of information can be addressed by adding two new kinds of comments to the implementation: the *abstraction function* and the *representation invariant* for the abstract data type. ## Abstraction functions The user of any Set implementation should not be able to distinguish it from any other implementation based on its functional behavior. As far as the user can tell, the operations act like operations on the mathematical ideal of a set. In the first implementation, the lists [3; 1], [1; 3], and [1; 1; 3] are distinguishable to the implementer, but not to the user. To the user, they all represent the abstract set {1, 3} and cannot be distinguished by any of the operations of the Set signature. From the point of view of the user, the abstract data type describes a set of abstract values and associated operations. The implementers knows that these abstract values are represented by concrete values that may contain additional information invisible from the user's view. This loss of information is described by the *abstraction function*, which is a mapping from the space of concrete values to the abstract space. The abstraction function for the implementation ListSetDups looks like this: ![](abst-fcn2.gif) Notice that several concrete values may map to a single abstract value; that is, the abstraction function may be *many-to-one*. It is also possible that some concrete values do not map to any abstract value; the abstraction function may be *partial*. That is not the case with ListSetDups, but it might be with other implementations. The abstraction function is important for deciding whether an implementation is correct, therefore it belongs as a comment in the implementation of any abstract data type. For example, in the ListSetDups module, we could document the abstraction function as follows:  module ListSetDups : Set = struct (* Abstraction function: the list [a1; ...; an] represents the * smallest set containing all the elements a1, ..., an. * The list may contain duplicates. * [] represents the empty set. *) type 'a set = 'a list ...  This comment explicitly points out that the list may contain duplicates, which is helpful as a reinforcement of the first sentence. Similarly, the case of an empty list is mentioned explicitly for clarity, although it is redundant. The abstraction function for the second implementation, which does not allow duplicates, hints at an important difference: we can write the abstraction function for this second representation a bit more simply because we know that the elements are distinct.  module ListSetNoDups : Set = struct (* Abstraction function: the list [a1; ...; an] represents the set * {a1, ..., an}. [] represents the empty set. *) type 'a set = 'a list ...  ## Commutative diagrams Using the abstraction function, we can now talk about what it means for an implementation of an abstraction to be *correct*. It is correct exactly when every operation that takes place in the concrete space makes sense when mapped by the abstraction function into the abstract space. This can be visualized as a *commutative diagram*: ![](commutation.gif) A commutative diagram means that if we take the two paths around the diagram, we have to get to the same place. Suppose that we start from a concrete value and apply the actual implementation of some operation to it to obtain a new concrete value or values. When viewed abstractly, a concrete result should be an abstract value that is a possible result of applying the function *as described in its specification* to the abstract view of the actual inputs. For example, consider the union function from the implementation of sets as lists with repeated elements covered last time. When this function is applied to the concrete pair [1; 3], [2; 2], it corresponds to the lower-left corner of the diagram. The result of this operation is the list [2; 2; 1; 3], whose corresponding abstract value is the list {1, 2, 3}. Note that if we apply the abstraction function AF to the input lists [1; 3] and [2; 2], we have the sets {1, 3} and {2}. The commutative diagram requires that in this instance the union of {1, 3} and {2} is {1, 2, 3}, which is of course true. ## Representation invariants The abstraction function explains how information within the module is viewed abstractly by module clients. However, this is not all we need to know to ensure correctness of the implementation. Consider the size function in each of the two implementations. For ListSetNoDups, in which the lists of integers have no duplicates, the size is just the length of the list:  let size = List.length  But for ListSetDups, which allows duplicates, we need to be sure not to double-count duplicate elements:  let rec size = function | [] -> 0 | h :: t -> size t + (if mem h t then 0 else 1)  How we know that we don't need to do this check in ListSetNoDups? Since the code does not explicitly say that there are no duplicates, implementers will not be able to reason locally about whether functions like size are implemented correctly. The issue here is that in the ListSetNoDups representation, not all concrete data items represent abstract data items. That is, the *domain* of the abstraction function does not include all possible lists. There are some lists, such as [1; 1; 2], that contain duplicates and must never occur in the representation of a set in the ListSetNoDups implementation; the abstraction function is undefined on such lists. We need to include a second piece of information, the *representation invariant* (or *rep invariant*, or *RI*), to determine which concrete data items are valid representations of abstract data items. For sets represented as lists without duplicates, we write this as part of the comment together with the abstraction function:  module ListSetNoDups : Set = struct (* Abstraction function: the list [a1; ...; an] represents the set * {a1, ..., an}. [] represents the empty set. * * Representation invariant: the list contains no duplicates. *) type 'a set = 'a list ...  If we think about this issue in terms of the commutative diagram, we see that there is a crucial property that is necessary to ensure correctness: namely, that all concrete operations preserve the representation invariant. If this constraint is broken, functions such as size will not return the correct answer. The relationship between the representation invariant and the abstraction function is depicted in this figure: ![](ri-af.png) We can use the rep invariant and abstraction function to judge whether the implementation of a single operation is correct *in isolation from the rest of the module*. It is correct if, assuming that: 1. the function's preconditions hold of the argument values 2. the concrete representations of the arguments satisfy the rep invariant we can show that 1. all new representation values created satisfy the rep invariant, and 2. the commutative diagram holds. The rep invariant makes it easier to write code that is provably correct, because it means that we don't have to write code that works for all possible incoming concrete representations&mdash;only those that satisfy the rep invariant. For example, in the implementation ListSetNoDups, we do not care what the code does on lists that contain duplicate elements. However, we do need to be concerned that on return, we only produce values that satisfy the rep invariant. As suggested in the figure above, if the rep invariant holds for the input values, then it should hold for the output values, which is why we call it an *invariant*. ## Implementing the rep invariant When implementing a complex abstract data type, it is often helpful to write an internal function that can be used to check that the rep invariant holds of a given data item. By convention we will call this function rep_ok. If the module accepts values of the abstract type that are created outside the module, say by exposing the implementation of the type in the signature, then rep_ok should be applied to these to ensure the representation invariant is satisfied. In addition, if the implementation creates any new values of the abstract type, rep_ok can be applied to them as a sanity check. With this approach, bugs are caught early, and a bug in one function is less likely to create the appearance of a bug in another. A convenient way to write rep_ok is to make it an identity function that just returns the input value if the rep invariant holds and raises an exception if it fails.  (* Checks whether x satisfies the representation invariant. *) let rep_ok (x : int list) : int list = ...  Here is an implementation of Set that uses the same data representation as ListSetNoDups, but includes copious rep_ok checks. Note that rep_ok is applied to all input sets and to any set that is ever created. This ensures that if a bad set representation is created, it will be detected immediately. In case we somehow missed a check on creation, we also apply rep_ok to incoming set arguments. If there is a bug, these checks will help us quickly figure out where the rep invariant is being broken.  (* Implementation of sets as lists without duplicates. * Includes rep_ok checks. *) module ListSetNoDupsRepOk : Set = struct (* Abstraction function: the list [a1; ...; an] represents the * set {a1, ..., an}. [] represents the empty set {}. * * Representation invariant: the list contains no duplicates. *) type 'a set = 'a list let rep_ok (l : 'a set) : 'a set = List.fold_right (fun x t -> assert (not (List.mem x t)); x :: t) l [] let empty = [] let mem x l = List.mem x (rep_ok l) let add x l = rep_ok (if mem x (rep_ok l) then l else x :: l) let rem x l = rep_ok (List.filter ((<>) x) (rep_ok l)) let size l = List.length (rep_ok l) let union l1 l2 = rep_ok (List.fold_left (fun a x -> if mem x l2 then a else x :: a) (rep_ok l2) (rep_ok l1)) let inter l1 l2 = rep_ok (List.filter (fun h -> mem h l2) (rep_ok l1)) end  Calling rep_ok on every argument can be too expensive for the production version of a program. The rep_ok above is quite expensive (though it could be implemented more cheaply). For production code, it may be more appropriate to use a version of rep_ok that only checks the parts of the rep invariant that are cheap to check. When there is a requirement that there be no run-time cost, rep_ok can be changed to an identity function (or macro) so the compiler optimizes away the calls to it. However, it is a good idea to keep around the full code of rep_ok (perhaps in a comment) so it can be easily reinstated during future debugging. Some languages provide support for conditional compilation. These constructs are ideal for checking representation invariants and other types of sanity checks. There is a compiler option that allows such assertions to be turned on during development and turned off for the final production version. ## Module invariants Invariants on data are useful even when writing modules that are not easily considered to be providing abstract data types. Sometimes it is difficult to identify an abstract view of data that is provided by the module, and there may not be any abstract type at all. Invariants are important even without an abstraction function, because they document the legal states and representations that the code is expected to handle correctly. *Module invariants* are invariants maintained by modules. In the case of a data abstraction, the rep invariant is a module invariant. Module invariants are useful for understanding how the code works, and also for maintenance, because the maintainer can avoid changes to the code that violate the module invariant. We described interface specifications as a contract between the implementer of a module and the user. A module invariant is a contract among the various implementers of the module, present and future. Once an invariant is established, operations may be implemented assuming that the rep invariant holds. If the rep invariant is ever weakened (made more permissive), some parts of the implementation may break. Thus, one of the most important purposes of the module invariant is to document exactly what may and what may not be safely changed about a module implementation. A weak invariant forces the implementer to work harder to produce a correct implementation, because less can be assumed about concrete representation values, but conversely it gives maximum flexibility for future changes to the code. A sign of good code design is that invariants on program data are enforced in a localized way, within modules, so that programmers can reason about whether the invariant is enforced without thinking about the rest of the program. To do this it is necessary to figure out just the right operations to be exposed by the various modules, so that useful functionality can be provided while also ensuring that invariants are maintained. Conversely, a common design error is to break up a program into a set of modules that simply encapulate data and provide low-level accessor operations, while putting all the interesting logic of the program in one main module. The problem with this design is that all the interesting (and hard!) code still lives in one place, and the main module is responsible for enforcing many complex invariants among the data. This kind of design does not break the program into simpler parts that can be reasoned about independently. It shows the big danger sign that the abstractions aren't right: all the code is either boring code, or overly complex code that is hard to reason about. For example, suppose we are implementing a graphical chess game. The game state includes a board and a bunch of pieces. We might want to keep track of where each piece is, as well as what is on each board square. And there may be a good deal of state in the graphical display too. A good design would ensure that the board, the pieces, and the graphical display stay in sync with each other in code that is separate from that which handles the detailed rules of the game of chess. ## Terms and concepts * abstract value * abstraction by specification * abstraction function * client * commutative diagram * concrete value * data abstraction * guarantee * implementer * locality * modifiability * module invariant * postcondition * precondition * rely * representation invariant * satisfaction * specification ## Further reading * [*Program Development in Java: Abstraction, Specification, and Object-Oriented Design*][liskov-guttag], chapters 5 and 9, by Barbara Liskov with John Guttag. [liskov-guttag]: https://newcatalog.library.cornell.edu/catalog/9494027