Reasoning about correctness properties of a coordination programming language

• Main Author: Grov, Gudmund
• Other Authors: Ireland, Andrew : Michaelson, Greg
• Published: Heriot-Watt University 2009
• Subjects: 005.3
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.507940

Safety critical systems place additional requirements to the programming language used to implement them with respect to traditional environments. Examples of features that in uence the suitability of a programming language in such environments include complexity of de nitions, expressive power, bounded space and time and veri ability. Hume is a novel programming language with a design which targets the rst three of these, in some ways, contradictory features: fully expressive languages cannot guarantee bounds on time and space, and low-level languages which can guarantee space and time bounds are often complex and thus error-phrone. In Hume, this contradiction is solved by a two layered architecture: a high-level fully expressive language, is built on top of a low-level coordination language which can guarantee space and time bounds. This thesis explores the veri cation of Hume programs. It targets safety properties, which are the most important type of correctness properties, of the low-level coordination language, which is believed to be the most error-prone. Deductive veri cation in Lamport's temporal logic of actions (TLA) is utilised, in turn validated through algorithmic experiments. This deductive veri cation is mechanised by rst embedding TLA in the Isabelle theorem prover, and then embedding Hume on top of this. Veri cation of temporal invariants is explored in this setting. In Hume, program transformation is a key feature, often required to guarantee space and time bounds of high-level constructs. Veri cation of transformations is thus an integral part of this thesis. The work with both invariant veri cation, and in particular, transformation veri cation, has pinpointed several weaknesses of the Hume language. Motivated and in uenced by this, an extension to Hume, called Hierarchical Hume, is developed and embedded in TLA. Several case studies of transformation and invariant veri cation of Hierarchical Hume in Isabelle are conducted, and an approach towards a calculus for transformations is examined.