Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On Process Equivalence = Equation Solving in CCS

  • Published:
Journal of Automated Reasoning Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Unique Fixpoint Induction (UFI) is the chief inference rule to prove the equivalence of recursive processes in the Calculus of Communicating Systems (CCS) (Milner 1989). It plays a major role in the equational approach to verification. Equational verification is of special interest as it offers theoretical advantages in the analysis of systems that communicate values, have infinite state space or show parameterised behaviour. We call these kinds of systems VIPSs. VIPSs is the acronym of Value-passing, Infinite-State and Parameterised Systems. Automating the application of UFI in the context of VIPSs has been neglected. This is both because many VIPSs are given in terms of recursive function symbols, making it necessary to carefully apply induction rules other than UFI, and because proving that one VIPS process constitutes a fixpoint of another involves computing a process substitution, mapping states of one process to states of the other, that often is not obvious. Hence, VIPS verification is usually turned into equation solving (Lin 1995a). Existing tools for this proof task, such as VPAM (Lin 1993), are highly interactive. We introduce a method that automates the use of UFI. The method uses middle-out reasoning (Bundy et al. 1990a) and, so, is able to apply the rule even without elaborating the details of the application. The method introduces meta-variables to represent those bits of the processes’ state space that, at application time, were not known, hence, changing from equation verification to equation solving. Adding this method to the equation plan developed by Monroy et al. (Autom Softw Eng 7(3):263–304, 2000a), we have implemented an automatic verification planner. This planner increases the number of verification problems that can be dealt with fully automatically, thus improving upon the current degree of automation in the field.

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

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bergstra, J.A., Klop, J.W.: Algebra of communicating processes with abstraction. Theor. Comp. Sci. 37(1), 77–121 (1985)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. Bouali, A., Ressouche, A., Roy, V., de Simone, R.: The FC2TOOLS set. In: Alur, R., Henzinger, T. (eds.) Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Computer-Aided Verification, CAV‘96. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 1102, pp. 441–45. Springer, New York (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Boulton, R., Slind, K., Bundy, A., Gordon, M.: An interface between CLAM and HOL. In: Grundy, J., Newey, M. (eds.) 11th International Conference on Theorem Proving in Higher-Order Logics (TPHOLs’98). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 1479, pp. 87–104. Springer, Camberra (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Bruns, G.: A language for value-passing CCS. LFCS report series ECS-LFCS-91-175, department of computer science. University of Edinburgh (1991)

  5. Bundy, A.: The use of explicit plans to guide inductive proofs. In: Lusk, R., Overbeek, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Automated Deduction, pp. 111–120. Springer, Argonne (1988) (Also available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper No. 349)

  6. Bundy, A., Smaill, A., Hesketh, J.: Turning eureka steps into calculations in automatic program synthesis. In: Clarke, S.L. (ed.) Proceedings of UK IT 90, pp. 221–6 (1990a) (Also available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper 448)

  7. Bundy, A., Stevens, A., van Harmelen, F., Ireland, A., Smaill, A.: Rippling: a heuristic for guiding inductive proofs. Artif. Intell. 62, 185–253 (1993) (Also available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper No. 567)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Bundy, A., van Harmelen, F., Hesketh, J., Smaill, A.: Experiments with proof plans for induction. J. Autom. Reason. 7, 303–324 (1991) (Earlier version available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper No 413)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Bundy, A., van Harmelen, F., Hesketh, J., Smaill, A., Stevens, A.: A rational reconstruction and extension of recursion analysis. In: Sridharan, N.S. (ed.): Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 359–365. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (1989) (Also available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper No. 419)

  10. Bundy, A., van Harmelen, F., Horn, C., Smaill, A: The oyster-clam system. In: Stickel, M.E. (ed.) Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Automated Deduction, pp. 647–648. Springer, New York (1990b) (Also available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper No. 507)

  11. Cleaveland, R.P.J., Steffen, B.: The concurrency workbench: a semantics-based verification tool for finite-state systems. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Automated Verification Methods for Finite-State Systems. Springer, New York (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Cleaveland, R., Lewis, P., Smolka, S., Sokolsky, O.: The concurrency factory: a development environment for concurrent systems. In: Alur,R., Henzinger, T. (eds.) Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Computer-Aided Verification, CAV‘96. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 1102, pp. 398–401. Springer, New York (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Cleaveland, R., Panangaden, P.: Type theory and concurrency. Int. J. Parallel Program. 17(2), 153–206 (1988)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Gallier, J.: Logic for Computer Science. Harper & Row, New York (1986)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Groote, J., Ponse, A.: Proof theory for μCRL. In: Andrews, D. et al (ed.) Proceedings of the International Workshop on Semantics of Specification Languages, pp. 231–250. Springer, New York (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Groote, J., Ponse, A.: The syntax and semantics of μCRL. In: Ponse, A., Verhoef, C., van Vlijmen, S. (eds.) Algebra of Communicating Processes 1994. pp. 26–62, Springer, New York (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Groote, J.F., Reniers, M.A.: Algebraic process verification. In: Bergstra, J.A., Ponse, A., Smolka, S. (eds.): Handbook of Process Algebra, pp. 1–66. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Groote, J.F., Springintveld, J.: Focus points and convergent processes operators: a proof strategy for protocol verification. J. Log. Algebr. Program. 49, 31–60 (2001)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. Hennessy, M., Lin, H.: Symbolic bisimulations. Theoret. Comput. Sci. 138, 353–389 (1995) (Also available from Sussex as Computing Science Technical Report 1/92)

  20. Hennessy, M., Lin, H.: Unique fixpoint induction for message-passing process calculi. In: Computing: The Australasian Theory Symposium (CATS’97), Sydney, February 1997 (Also available from Sussex as Computing Science Technical Report 6/95)

  21. Ireland, A.: The use of planning critics in mechanizing inductive proofs. In: Voronkov, A. (ed.) International Conference on Logic Programming and Automated Reasoning—LPAR 92, St. Petersburg. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 624, pp. 178–89. Springer, New York (1992). Also available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper No. 592

  22. ISO: Information processing systems—Open Systems Interconnection—LOTOS—A formal description technique based on the temporal ordering of observational behaviour. ISO 8807 (1989)

  23. Korver, H., Springintveld, J.: A computer-checked verification of Milner’s scheduler. In: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Software (TACS‘94). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 789, pp. 161–78. Springer, Sendai (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Kurshan, R.P., McMillan, K.: A structural induction theorem for processes. In: 8th ACM Symposium on Principles Of Distributed Computing (PODC), pp. 239–47. ACM, New York (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Lin, H.: A verification tool for value-passing processes. In: Proceedings of 13th International Symposium on Protocol Specification, Testing and Verification. North-Holland, Amsterdam (1993) (Also available from Sussex as Computing Science Technical Report 8/93)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Lin, H.: On implementing unique fixpoint induction for value- passing processes. In: Proceedings of TACAS‘95 Workshop on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, Aarhus, 19–20 May 1995a

  27. Lin, H.: PAM: a process algebra manipulator. Form. Methods Syst. Des. 7(3), 243–259 (1995b)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Milner, R.: Communication and Concurrency. Prentice Hall, London (1989)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. Milner, R., Parrow, J., Walker, D.: Mobile logics for mobile processes. Theoret. Comput. Sci. 114, 149–71 (1993) (Also available from Edinburgh, as Research Report ECS-LFCS-91-136)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Monroy, R.: Planning Proofs of Correctness of CCS Systems. Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh University (1998)

  31. Monroy, R., Bundy, A., Green, I.: Planning equational verification in CCS. In: Redmiles, D., Nuseibeh, B. (eds.) 13th Conference on Automated Software Engineering, ASE’98, pp. 43–52, Hawaii, 13–16 October 1998 (Candidate to best paper award)

  32. Monroy, R., Bundy, A., Green, I.: Planning proofs of equations in CCS. Autom. Softw. Eng. 7(3), 263–304 (2000a)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  33. Monroy, R., Bundy, A., Green, I.: Searching for a solution to program verification = equation solving in CCS. In: Cairó, O., Sucar, L., Cantú, F. (eds.) Mexican Internation Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI‘00. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 1793, pp. 1–12. Springer-Verlag, Acapulco (2000b)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Nesi, M.: Mechanizing a proof by induction of process algebra specifications in higher-order logic. In: Larsen, K.G., Skou, A. (eds.) Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop in Computer Aided Verification (CAV‘91). Lecture Notes in Computer Science No. 575. Springer, New York (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Nesi, M.: Formalising a value-passing calculus in HOL. Form. Asp. Comput. 11, 160–199 (1999)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  36. Park, D.: Concurrency and automata on infinite sequences. In: Deussen, P. (ed.) Proceedings of the 5th GI-Conference on Theoretical Computer Science, LNCS 104, pp. 167–183, Karlsruhe, 23–25 March 1981

  37. Rathke, J.: Unique fixpoint induction for value-passing processes (Extended Abstract). In: Proceedings of the 12th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, pp. 140–8. IEEE Computer Society, Warsaw (1997)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Tecnológico de Monterrey—Campus Estado de México, Carretera al lago de Guadalupe Km 3.5, 52926, Atizapán de Zaragoza, Mexico

    Raúl Monroy

  2. School of Informatics, Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications, University of Edinburgh, Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, Scotland

    Alan Bundy

  3. QSS Ltd, 13 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland

    Ian Green

Authors
  1. Raúl Monroy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alan Bundy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ian Green
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raúl Monroy.

Additional information

Partially supported by grants CONACyT-47557-Y and ITESM CCEM-0302-05.

Partially supported by EPSRC GR/L/11724.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Monroy, R., Bundy, A. & Green, I. On Process Equivalence = Equation Solving in CCS. J Autom Reasoning 43, 53–80 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-009-9125-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-009-9125-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation