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International Conference on Mathematics of Program Construction

MPC 2002: Mathematics of Program Construction pp 94–116Cite as

Reasoning about Timeouts

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2386))

Abstract

In real-time programming a timeout mechanism allows exceptional behaviour, such as a lack of response, to be handled effectively, while not overly affecting the programming for the normal case. For example, in a pump controller if the water level has gone below the minimum level and the pump is on and hence pumping in more water, then the water level should rise above the minimum level within a specified time. If not, there is a fault in the system and it should be shut down and an alarm raised. Such a situation can be handled by normal case code that determines when the level has risen above the minimum, plus a timeout case handling the situation when the specified time to reach the minimum has passed.

In this paper we introduce a timeout mechanism, give it a formal definition in terms of more basic real-time commands, develop a refinement law for introducing a timeout clause to implement a specification, and give an example of using the law to introduce a timeout. The framework used is a machine-independent real-time programming language, which makes use of a deadline command to represent timing constraints in a machine-independent fashion. This allows a more abstract approach to handling timeouts.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia

    Ian J. Hayes

Authors
  1. Ian J. Hayes
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Laboratory, University of Kent at Canterbury, CT2 7NF, Canterbury, Kent, UK

    Eerke A. Boiten

  2. Institut für Informatik, Universität Augsburg, Universitätsstr. 14, 86135, Augsburg, Germany

    Bernhard Möller

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Hayes, I.J. (2002). Reasoning about Timeouts. In: Boiten, E.A., Möller, B. (eds) Mathematics of Program Construction. MPC 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2386. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45442-X_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45442-X_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43857-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45442-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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