Abstract
Two runs of a distributed system can be considered equivalent if they represent different interleavings of the same run. Formulas of the propositional temporal logic of linear time (PTL) are said to be trace consistent when they cannot distinguish between equivalent runs. Determining whether a formula is trace consistent is decidable. In this paper, we consider a closely related notion: a PTL formula is said to be inevitable, if for every system run, there is at least one equivalent run (that is, one interleaving of that run) which satisfies the formula. We show that determining whether a formula is inevitable is undecidable. However, for a subclass of formulas termed coherent (propositions in them can be affected by either of a pair of independent operations but not both), inevitability becomes decidable.
Part of this work was done while I was visiting Institut für Informatik und Praktische Mathematik, Christian — Albrechts — UniversitÄt Kiel, Germany. I thank Wolfgang Thomas for making the visit possible. I also thank the referees for comments.
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Ramanujam, R. (1996). Trace consistency and inevitability. In: Chandru, V., Vinay, V. (eds) Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science. FSTTCS 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1180. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62034-6_54
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-62034-6_54
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