CZT: A Framework for Z Tools

Abstract

The Community Z Tools (CZT) project is an open-source Java framework for building formal methods tools for Z and Z dialects. It also includes a set of tools for parsing, typechecking, transforming and printing standard Z specifications in LATEX , Unicode or XML formats. This paper gives an overview of the CZT framework, including an introduction to its visitor design pattern that makes it possible to write new Z transformation tools in just a few lines of Java code. The paper also discusses several problems and challenges that arose when attempting to build tools based on the SO Standard for Z.