Separation of Test-Free Propositional Dynamic Logics over Context-Free Languages

For a class L of languages let PDL[L] be an extension of Propositional Dynamic Logic which allows programs to be in a language of L rather than just to be regular. If L contains a non-regular language, PDL[L] can express non-regular properties, in contrast to pure PDL. For regular, visibly pushdown and deterministic context-free languages, the separation of the respective PDLs can be proven by automata-theoretic techniques. However, these techniques introduce non-determinism on the automata side. As non-determinism is also the difference between DCFL and CFL, these techniques seem to be inappropriate to separate PDL[DCFL] from PDL[CFL]. Nevertheless, this separation is shown but for programs without test operators.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2011, arXiv:1106.081

Matching Logic

This paper presents matching logic, a first-order logic (FOL) variant for specifying and reasoning about structure by means of patterns and pattern matching. Its sentences, the patterns, are constructed using variables, symbols, connectives and quantifiers, but no difference is made between function and predicate symbols. In models, a pattern evaluates into a power-set domain (the set of values that match it), in contrast to FOL where functions and predicates map into a regular domain. Matching logic uniformly generalizes several logical frameworks important for program analysis, such as: propositional logic, algebraic specification, FOL with equality, modal logic, and separation logic. Patterns can specify separation requirements at any level in any program configuration, not only in the heaps or stores, without any special logical constructs for that: the very nature of pattern matching is that if two structures are matched as part of a pattern, then they can only be spatially separated. Like FOL, matching logic can also be translated into pure predicate logic with equality, at the same time admitting its own sound and complete proof system. A practical aspect of matching logic is that FOL reasoning with equality remains sound, so off-the-shelf provers and SMT solvers can be used for matching logic reasoning. Matching logic is particularly well-suited for reasoning about programs in programming languages that have an operational semantics, but it is not limited to this

Convolution, Separation and Concurrency

A notion of convolution is presented in the context of formal power series together with lifting constructions characterising algebras of such series, which usually are quantales. A number of examples underpin the universality of these constructions, the most prominent ones being separation logics, where convolution is separating conjunction in an assertion quantale; interval logics, where convolution is the chop operation; and stream interval functions, where convolution is used for analysing the trajectories of dynamical or real-time systems. A Hoare logic is constructed in a generic fashion on the power series quantale, which applies to each of these examples. In many cases, commutative notions of convolution have natural interpretations as concurrency operations.Comment: 39 page

Fifty years of Hoare's Logic

We present a history of Hoare's logic.Comment: 79 pages. To appear in Formal Aspects of Computin

Kleene algebra with domain

We propose Kleene algebra with domain (KAD), an extension of Kleene algebra with two equational axioms for a domain and a codomain operation, respectively. KAD considerably augments the expressiveness of Kleene algebra, in particular for the specification and analysis of state transition systems. We develop the basic calculus, discuss some related theories and present the most important models of KAD. We demonstrate applicability by two examples: First, an algebraic reconstruction of Noethericity and well-foundedness; second, an algebraic reconstruction of propositional Hoare logic.Comment: 40 page

A Simple Separation Logic

International audienceThe kinds of models that are usually considered in separation logic are structures such as words, trees, and more generally pointer structures (heaps). In this paper we introduce the separation logic of much simpler structures, viz. sets. The models of our set separation logic are nothing but valuations of classical propositional logic. Separating a valuation V consists in splitting it up into two partial valuations v 1 and v 2. Truth of a formula φ 1 * φ 2 in a valuation V can then be defined in two different ways: first, as truth of φ 1 in all total extensions of v 1 and truth of φ 2 in all total extensions of v 2; and second, as truth of φ 1 in some total extension of v 1 and truth of φ 2 in some total extension of v 2. The first is an operator of separation of resources: the update of φ 1 * φ 2 by ψ is the conjunction of the update of φ 1 by ψ and the update of φ 2 by ψ; in other words, φ 1 * φ 2 can be updated independently. The second is an operator of separation of processes: updates by ψ 1 * ψ 2 can be performed independently. We show that the satisfiability problem of our logic is decidable in polynomial space (PSPACE). We do so by embedding it into dynamic logic of propositional assignments (which is PSPACE complete). We moreover investigate its applicability to belief update and belief revision, where the separation operators allow to formulate natural requirements on independent pieces of information