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How Hard is it to Reason about Propositional Programs?

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Program Design Calculi

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((NATO ASI F,volume 118))

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Abstract

We consider the difficulty of reasoning about schematic programs. The general framework is taken to be that of propositional dynamic logic (PDL), which is a natural extension of the propositional calculus, subsuming Hoare logic and various modal logics. Formulas in PDL can express a wide spectrum of statements about propositional programs, including correctness, termination and equivalence. One of the main interests in PDL stems from allowing the particular class of programs to vary. Examples include regular (iterative) programs, flowcharts, context-free (recursive) procedures, and concurrent versions thereof. As it turns out, the difficulty of deciding satisfiability of formulas in such logics can range from being NP-complete to being highly-undecidable.

The paper surveys and puts into perspective work carried out by many people over the last 16 years.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    David Harel

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  1. David Harel
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Informatik, Technische Universität München, Arcisstr. 21, D-80333, München, Germany

    Manfred Broy

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© 1993 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Harel, D. (1993). How Hard is it to Reason about Propositional Programs?. In: Broy, M. (eds) Program Design Calculi. NATO ASI Series, vol 118. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-02880-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-02880-3_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-08164-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-02880-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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