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A temporal programming model with atomic blocks based on projection temporal logic

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Abstract

Atomic blocks, a high-level language construct that allows programmers to explicitly specify the atomicity of operations without worrying about the implementations, are a promising approach that simplifies concurrent programming. On the other hand, temporal logic is a successful model in logic programming and concurrency verification, but none of existing temporal programming models supports concurrent programming with atomic blocks yet. In this paper, we propose a temporal programming model (αPTL) which extends the projection temporal logic (PTL) to support concurrent programming with atomic blocks. The novel construct that formulates atomic execution of code blocks, which we call atomic interval formulas, is always interpreted over two consecutive states, with the internal states of the block being abstracted away. We show that the framing mechanism in projection temporal logic also works in the new model, which consequently supports our development of an executive language. The language supports concurrency by introducing a loose interleaving semantics which tracks only the mutual exclusion between atomic blocks. We demonstrate the usage of αPTL by modeling and verifying both the fine-grained and coarse-grained concurrency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Computer Science, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Xiaoxiao Yang & Yu Zhang

  2. Suzhou Institute for Advanced Study University of Science & Technology of China, SuZhou, 215123, China

    Ming Fu & Xinyu Feng

Authors
  1. Xiaoxiao Yang
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  2. Yu Zhang
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  3. Ming Fu
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  4. Xinyu Feng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaoxiao Yang.

Additional information

Xiaoxiao Yang got her PhD degree from Xidian University in 2009. She is now an assistant professor in State Key Laboratory of Computer Science, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her main research interests are in the areas of concurrent theory, temporal logic, logic programming, software modeling, and verification.

Yu Zhang got his PhD degree from école Normale Supérieure de Cachan, France in 2005 and has been an associate research professor of Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2009. His research interests include formal methods, concurrent systems, information security, and programming languages.

Ming Fu got his PhD degree from University of Science and Technology of China in 2009. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in USTC-Yale Joint Research Center for high-confidence software, University of Science and Technology of China. His main research interests lie in the areas of formal methods, concurrent program verification, and concurrency theory.

Xinyu Feng got his PhD degree from Yale University in 2007. He is now a professor in computer science at University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests are in the area of formal program verification. In particular, he is interested in developing theories, programming languages and tools to build formally certified system software, with rigorous guarantees of safety and correctness.

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Yang, X., Zhang, Y., Fu, M. et al. A temporal programming model with atomic blocks based on projection temporal logic. Front. Comput. Sci. 8, 958–976 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-014-3342-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-014-3342-0

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