Abstract
This paper presents a novel formal development of a non-trivial parallel program: Simpson’s implementation of asynchronous communication mechanisms (ACMs). Although the correctness of the “4-slot algorithm” has been shown elsewhere, earlier developments are by no means intuitive. The aims of this paper include both the presentation of an understandable (yet formal) design history and the establishment of another way of “splitting (software) atoms”. Using the “fiction of atomicity” as an aid to understanding the initial steps of development, the top-level specification is developed to code. The rely-guarantee approach is, here, combined with notions of read/write frames and “phased” specifications; the atomicity assumptions implied by rely/guarantee conditions are realised by clever choice of data representation. The development method herein is compared with other approaches –in a spirit of cooperation– as the authors believe that constructive comparison elucidates many of the finer points in the “4-slot” specification/development and of parallel programs in general.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abrial, J.-R.: The B-Book: Assigning programs to meanings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1996)
Abrial, J.-R., Cansell, D.: Formal construction of a non-blocking concurrent queue algorithm. Journal of Universal Computer Science 11(5), 744–770 (2005)
Abrial, J.-R., Cansell, D.: Development of a comcurrent program (2008) (private communication)
Bornat, R., Amjad, H.: Inter-process buffers in separation logic with rely-guarantee. Formal Aspects of Computing (private communication) (submitted, 2008 )
de Roever, W.P.: Concurrency Verification: Introduction to Compositional and Noncompositional Methods. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)
de Roever, W.P., Engelhardt, K.: Data Refinement: Model-Oriented Proof Methods and Their Comparison. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1999)
Henderson, N.: Formal Modelling and Analysis of an Asynchronous Communication Mechanism. PhD thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne (2004)
Henderson, N., Paynter, S.E.: The formal classification and verification of Simpson’s 4-slot asynchronous communication mechanism. In: Eriksson, L.-H., Lindsay, P.A. (eds.) FME 2002. LNCS, vol. 2391, pp. 350–369. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Jones, C.B.: Development Methods for Computer Programs including a Notion of Interference. PhD thesis, Oxford University (June 1981); Printed as: Programming Research Group, Technical Monograph 25
Jones, C.B.: Specification and design of (parallel) programs. In: Proceedings of IFIP 1983, pp. 321–332. North-Holland, Amsterdam (1983)
Jones, C.B.: Tentative steps toward a development method for interfering programs. Transactions on Programming Languages and System 5(4), 596–619 (1983)
Jones, C.B.: Data reification. In: McDermid, J.A. (ed.) The Theory and Practice of Refinement, pp. 79–89. Butterworths (1989)
Jones, C.B.: Systematic Software Development using VDM, 2nd edn. Prentice Hall International, Englewood Cliffs (1990)
Jones, C.B.: Accommodating interference in the formal design of concurrent object-based programs. Formal Methods in System Design 8(2), 105–122 (1996)
Jones, C.B.: Wanted: a compositional approach to concurrency. In: McIver, A., Morgan, C. (eds.) Programming Methodology, pp. 1–15. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Jones, C.B.: Splitting atoms safely. Theoretical Computer Science 357, 109–119 (2007)
Nipkow, T.: Non-deterministic data types: Models and implementations. Acta Informatica 22, 629–661 (1986)
Nipkow, T.: Behavioural Implementation Concepts for Nondeterministic Data Types. PhD thesis, University of Manchester (May 1987)
Paynter, S.E., Henderson, N., Armstrong, J.M.: Ramifications of meta-stability in bit variables explored via Simpson’s 4-slot mechanism. Formal Aspects of Computing 16(4), 332–351 (2004)
Rodin.: Rodin tools can be downloaded from SourceForge (2008), http://sourceforge.net/projects/rodin-b-sharp/
Simpson, H.R.: New algorithms for asynchronous communication. IEE, Proceedings of Computer Digital Technology 144(4), 227–231 (1997)
Stølen, K.: Development of Parallel Programs on Shared Data-Structures. PhD thesis, Manchester University (1990), Available as UMCS-91-1-1
Vafeiadis, V.: Modular fine-grained concurrency verification. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jones, C.B., Pierce, K.G. (2008). Splitting Atoms with Rely/Guarantee Conditions Coupled with Data Reification. In: Börger, E., Butler, M., Bowen, J.P., Boca, P. (eds) Abstract State Machines, B and Z. ABZ 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5238. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-87603-8_47
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-87603-8_47
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-87602-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-87603-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)