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Action systems, unbounded nondeterminism, and infinite traces

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Formal Aspects of Computing

Abstract

Morgan [Mor90a] has described a correspondence between Back's action systems [BKS83] and the conventionalfailures-divergences model of Hoare'scommunicating sequential processes (CSP) formalism [Hoa85]. However, the CSP failures-divergences model does not treat unbounded nondeterminism, although unbounded nondeterminism arises quite naturally in action systems; to that extent, the correspondence between the two approaches is inadequate.

Fortunately there is an extendedinfinite traces model of CSP [RoB89] which treats unbounded nondeterminism. We extend the CSP-action system correspondence, using that model instead, to take the unbounded nondeterminism of action systems properly into account.

In passing, we develop a definition of the weakest precondition under which an infinite heterogeneous trace of actions is enabled.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford University Programming Research Group, Oxford, UK

    Michael Butler & Carroll Morgan

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  1. Michael Butler
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  2. Carroll Morgan
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Funded by Broadcom Éireann Research Ltd, Dublin.

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Butler, M., Morgan, C. Action systems, unbounded nondeterminism, and infinite traces. Formal Aspects of Computing 7, 37–53 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01214622

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01214622

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