trlc 1.2.1

Treat Requirements Like Code

Treat Requirements Like Code (TRLC)

TRLC is a domain-specific language developed at BMW for writing (and linking) requirements with meta-data.

The repository contains:

• The language reference manual for TRLC. Previous versions are also available.

• A pure Python reference implementation of TRLC.

The implementation is not very fast, but designed to be pedantically correct in following the language definition. The tools also include a powerful static analysis tool to find issues with types and user-defined check rules.

The Python implementation can be used for several purposes:

• It can be used to validate other TRLC implementations.

• It can be used to validate a body of requirements (e.g. a CI check that all requirements are well formed)

• The API can be used to write other tools based on TRLC (for example a tool to render the requirements in HTML, a tool to diff requirements or perform an impact analysis, or a tool to perform software traceability, etc.)

Documentation

For normal users

• Tutorial (read this as a first introduction)
• Release Notes (read this to find out whats new)
• License

For API users

• Language Reference Manual (for language lawyers)
• Python API Documentation (API reference for end-users)
• AST Hierarchy (overview over all classes in the AST)

For TRLC developers

• Lexer/Parser Hierarchy (overview over all classes releated to the lexing and parsing of TRLC)
• Tool Architecture Overview

Dependencies

Run-time

• 3.8 <= Python3 <= 3.11

Optional dependencies (they are not installed automatically):

• PyVCG (Linux or OSX only, required when using the --verify option)

Development tools

• GNU Make
• Graphviz
• PyCodeStyle (from PyPI, for basic checking of source code style)
• PyLint (from PyPI, for basic bug finding)
• Coverage (from PyPI, to perform branch coverage when running the test suite)
• Sphinx (from PyPI, for building the documentation)
• PyVCG (from PyPI, for building verification conditions)
• CVC5 (from PyPI, for discharging verification conditions)

You can install all Python dependencies by doing:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

When building the traceability report you also need to install two lobster packages. Since there is a circular dependency, please install like this:

pip3 install bmw-lobster-core bmw-lobster-tool-python
pip3 install --no-deps bmw-lobster-tool-trlc

The most important make targets when developing TRLC are:

• lint (runs pycodestyle and pylint)
• test (performs unit and system tests and shows coverage)
• tracing (generates traceability report)