Static Analysis Tools for SWRL
The semantic web is a worldwide effort aimed at attaching machine-understandable semantic information to content, and to develop applications that make use of that information. SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) is a logic programming language that is becoming a standard for providing reasoning capabilities on semantic-web information. Like any other language, programs written in SWRL are not immune to programming flaws and security vulnerabilities. Under this DARPA-sponsored SBIR contract, GrammaTech is developing a tool for allowing the static analysis of SWRL programs. This draws on work on the analysis of logic programs, and on GrammaTech's experience with the static analysis of sequential imperative programs. The tool will allow users to reason about the behavior of their SWRL programs and permit queries aimed at finding programming errors and security vulnerabilities. It will allow users to proactively assess the security and assurance properties of their programs before they are deployed. An additional benefit will be facilities for helping programmers understand SWRL programs, and for assessing the effect of proposed changes.
The tool will benefit the development of the semantic web by allowing deployers of semantic-web applications to reason about the behavior of their applications in advance. This will allow them to reduce error rates and identify security vulnerabilities.