8 research outputs found
A First-Order Complete Temporal Logic for Structured Context-Free Languages
The problem of model checking procedural programs has fostered much research
towards the definition of temporal logics for reasoning on context-free
structures. The most notable of such results are temporal logics on Nested
Words, such as CaRet and NWTL. Recently, the logic OPTL was introduced, based
on the class of Operator Precedence Languages (OPLs), more powerful than Nested
Words. We define the new OPL-based logic POTL and prove its FO-completeness.
POTL improves on NWTL by enabling the formulation of requirements involving
pre/post-conditions, stack inspection, and others in the presence of
exception-like constructs. It improves on OPTL too, which instead we show not
to be FO-complete; it also allows to express more easily stack inspection and
function-local properties. In a companion paper we report a model checking
procedure for POTL and experimental results based on a prototype tool developed
therefor. For completeness a short summary of this complementary result is
provided in this paper too.Comment: Partially supersedes arXiv:1910.0932