Skip to main content

Specification of required non-determinism

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
FME '97: Industrial Applications and Strengthened Foundations of Formal Methods (FME 1997)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1313))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

We present an approach to the specification of required external non-determinism: the willingness of a component to respond to a number of external action requests, using a language, COMMUNITY, which provides both permission and willingness guards on actions.

This enables a program-like declaration of required non-determinism, in contrast to the use of a branching-time temporal logic. We give a definition of parallel composition for this language, and show that refinement is compositional with respect to parallel composition. We use the concepts developed for COMMUNITY to identify extensions to the B and VDM++ model-based specification languages to incorporate specification of required non-determinism. In particular, we show that preconditions may be considered as a form of willingness guard, separating concerns of acceptance and termination, once module contracts are re-interpreted in a way suitable for a concurrent environment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. J-R Abrial. The B Book: Assigning Programs to Meanings. Cambridge University Press, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  2. J-R Abrial. Extending B Without Changing it (for Developing Distributed Systems), B Conference, IRIN, Nantes, November 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  3. M Butler. Stepwise Refinement of Communicating Systems, Southampton University, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  4. K M Chandy and J Misra. Parallel Program Design-A Foundation. AddisonWesley, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  5. S Cook and J Daniels. Designing Object Systems: Object-Oriented Modelling with Syntropy. Prentice Hall, Sept 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  6. J Fiadeiro and T Maibaum. Temporal Theories as Modularisation Units for Concurrent System Specification, Formal Aspects of Computing 4(3), pp. 239–272, 1992.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. J Fiadeiro and T Maibaum. Categorical Semantics of Parallel Program Design, Science of Computer Programming, 28 (1997), pp. 111–138, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  8. C B Jones. Accommodating Interference in the formal design of concurrent objectbased programs. Formal Methods in System Design, 8(2): 105–122, March 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  9. R Kuiper. Enforcing Nondeterminism via Linear Time Temporal Logic Specification using Hiding, in B Banieqbal, H Barringer and A Pnueli (eds) Temporal Logic in Specification, LNCS 398, Springer-Verlag 1989, 295–303.

    Google Scholar 

  10. K Lano, S Goldsack, J Bicarregui and S Kent. Integrating VDM ++ and Real-Time System Design, Z User Meeting, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  11. A Lopes. COMMUNITY and Required Non-determinism, Department of Informatics, University of Lisbon, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  12. C McHale. Synchronisation in Concurrent, Object-oriented Languages: Expressive Power, Genericity and Inheritance. PhD Thesis, University of Dublin, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  13. C Stirling. Comparing linear and branching time temporal logics. In B Baniegbal, H Barringer and A Pnueli (eds) Temporal Logic in Specification, LNCS 398, Springer-Verlag 1989.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

John Fitzgerald Cliff B. Jones Peter Lucas

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Lano, K., Bicarregui, J., Fiadeiro, J., Lopes, A. (1997). Specification of required non-determinism. In: Fitzgerald, J., Jones, C.B., Lucas, P. (eds) FME '97: Industrial Applications and Strengthened Foundations of Formal Methods. FME 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1313. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-63533-5_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-63533-5_16

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-63533-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69593-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics