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Promela
PROMELA (Process or Protocol Meta Language) is a verification modeling language introduced by Gerard J. Holzmann. The language allows for the dynamic creation of concurrent processes to model, for example, distributed systems. In PROMELA models, communication via message channels can be defined to be synchronous (i.e., rendezvous), or asynchronous (i.e., buffered). PROMELA models can be analyzed with the SPIN model checker, to verify that the modeled system produces the desired behavior. An implementation verified with Isabelle/HOL is also available, as part of the Computer Aided Verification of Automata (CAVA) project. Files written in Promela traditionally have a .pml file extension. Introduction PROMELA is a process-modeling language whose intended use is to verify the logic of parallel systems. Given a program in PROMELA, Spin can verify the model for correctness by performing random or iterative simulations of the modeled system's execution, or it can generate a C program th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SPIN Model Checker
SPIN is a general tool for verifying the correctness of concurrent software models in a rigorous and mostly automated fashion. It was written by Gerard J. Holzmann and others in the original Unix group of the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs, beginning in 1980. The software has been available freely since 1991, and continues to evolve to keep pace with new developments in the field. Tool Systems to be verified are described in Promela (Process Meta Language), which supports modeling of asynchronous distributed algorithms as non-deterministic automata (''SPIN'' stands for "Simple Promela Interpreter"). Properties to be verified are expressed as Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formulas, which are negated and then converted into Büchi automata as part of the model-checking algorithm. In addition to model-checking, SPIN can also operate as a simulator, following one possible execution path through the system and presenting the resulting execution trace to the user. U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guard (computing)
In computer programming, a guard is a boolean expression that must evaluate to true if the program execution is to continue in the branch in question. Regardless of which programming language is used, a guard clause, guard code, or guard statement, is a check of integrity preconditions used to avoid errors during execution. Uses A typical example is checking that a reference about to be processed is not null, which avoids null-pointer failures. Other uses include using a boolean field for idempotence (so subsequent calls are nops), as in the dispose pattern. public string Foo(string username) Flatter code with less nesting The guard provides an early exit from a subroutine, and is a commonly used deviation from structured programming, removing one level of nesting and resulting in flatter code: replacing if guard with if not guard: return; .... Using guard clauses can be a refactoring technique to improve code. In general, less nesting is good, as it simplifies the code an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modeling Language
A modeling language is any artificial language that can be used to express information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules. The rules are used for interpretation of the meaning of components in the structure. Overview A modeling language can be graphical or textual. * ''Graphical'' modeling languages use a diagram technique with named symbols that represent concepts and lines that connect the symbols and represent relationships and various other graphical notation to represent constraints. * ''Textual'' modeling languages may use standardized keywords accompanied by parameters or natural language terms and phrases to make computer-interpretable expressions. An example of a graphical modeling language and a corresponding textual modeling language is EXPRESS. Not all modeling languages are executable, and for those that are, the use of them doesn't necessarily mean that programmers are no longer required. On the contrary, executab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Formal Verification
In the context of hardware and software systems, formal verification is the act of proving or disproving the correctness of intended algorithms underlying a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property, using formal methods of mathematics. Formal verification can be helpful in proving the correctness of systems such as: cryptographic protocols, combinational circuits, digital circuits with internal memory, and software expressed as source code. The verification of these systems is done by providing a formal proof on an abstract mathematical model of the system, the correspondence between the mathematical model and the nature of the system being otherwise known by construction. Examples of mathematical objects often used to model systems are: finite-state machines, labelled transition systems, Petri nets, vector addition systems, timed automata, hybrid automata, process algebra, formal semantics of programming languages such as operational semantics, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Temporal Logic
In logic, temporal logic is any system of rules and symbolism for representing, and reasoning about, propositions qualified in terms of time (for example, "I am ''always'' hungry", "I will ''eventually'' be hungry", or "I will be hungry ''until'' I eat something"). It is sometimes also used to refer to tense logic, a modal logic-based system of temporal logic introduced by Arthur Prior in the late 1950s, with important contributions by Hans Kamp. It has been further developed by computer scientists, notably Amir Pnueli, and logicians. Temporal logic has found an important application in formal verification, where it is used to state requirements of hardware or software systems. For instance, one may wish to say that ''whenever'' a request is made, access to a resource is ''eventually'' granted, but it is ''never'' granted to two requestors simultaneously. Such a statement can conveniently be expressed in a temporal logic. Motivation Consider the statement "I am hungry". Though its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randomness
In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are, by definition, unpredictable, but if the probability distribution is known, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events (or "trials") is predictable.Strictly speaking, the frequency of an outcome will converge almost surely to a predictable value as the number of trials becomes arbitrarily large. Non-convergence or convergence to a different value is possible, but has probability zero. For example, when throwing two dice, the outcome of any particular roll is unpredictable, but a sum of 7 will tend to occur twice as often as 4. In this view, randomness is not haphazardness; it is a measure of uncertainty of an outcome. Randomness applies to concepts of chance, probability, and information entropy. The fields of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nondeterministic Algorithm
In computer programming, a nondeterministic algorithm is an algorithm that, even for the same input, can exhibit different behaviors on different runs, as opposed to a deterministic algorithm. There are several ways an algorithm may behave differently from run to run. A concurrent algorithm can perform differently on different runs due to a race condition. A probabilistic algorithm's behaviors depends on a random number generator. An algorithm that solves a problem in nondeterministic polynomial time can run in polynomial time or exponential time depending on the choices it makes during execution. The nondeterministic algorithms are often used to find an approximation to a solution, when the exact solution would be too costly to obtain using a deterministic one. The notion was introduced by Robert W. Floyd in 1967. Use Often in computational theory, the term "algorithm" refers to a deterministic algorithm. A nondeterministic algorithm is different from its more familiar determi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Construct
In computer programming, a language construct is a syntactically allowable part of a program that may be formed from one or more lexical tokens in accordance with the rules of the programming language. The term "language construct" is often used as a synonym for control structure. Control flow statements (such as conditionals, foreach loops, while loops, etc) are language constructs, not functions. So while (true) is a language construct, while add(10) is a function call. Examples of language constructs In PHP print is a language construct. is the same as: Programming constructs In Java a class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ... is written in this format: public class MyClass In C++ a class is written in this format: class MyCPlusPlusClass ; Refere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Occam (programming Language)
occam is a programming language which is concurrent and builds on the communicating sequential processes (CSP) process algebra, Inmos document 72 occ 45 03 and shares many of its features. It is named after philosopher William of Ockham after whom Occam's razor is named. occam is an imperative procedural language (such as Pascal). It was developed by David May and others at Inmos (trademark INMOS), advised by Tony Hoare, as the native programming language for their transputer microprocessors, but implementations for other platforms are available. The most widely known version is occam 2; its programming manual was written by Steven Ericsson-Zenith and others at Inmos. Overview In the following examples indentation and formatting are critical for parsing the code: expressions are terminated by the end of the line, lists of expressions need to be on the same level of indentation. This feature, named the off-side rule, is also found in other languages such as Haskell and Pytho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Typedef
typedef is a reserved keyword in the programming languages C, C++, and Objective-C. It is used to create an additional name (''alias'') for another data type, but does not create a new type, except in the obscure case of a qualified typedef of an array type where the typedef qualifiers are transferred to the array element type. As such, it is often used to simplify the syntax of declaring complex data structures consisting of struct and union types, although it is also commonly used to provide specific descriptive type names for integer data types of varying sizes. Syntax The syntax of the typedef declaration is: ; ''type-declaration''; The name of the new type alias follows the same syntax as declaring any other C identifier, therefore, in more detailed form: ; ''type-definition'' ''identifier;'' In the C standard library and in POSIX specifications, the identifier for the typedef definition is often suffixed with , such as in size_t and time_t. This is practiced in oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
File Extension
A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically delimited from the rest of the filename with a full stop (period), but in some systems it is separated with spaces. Other extension formats include dashes and/or underscores on early versions of Linux and some versions of IBM AIX. Some file systems implement filename extensions as a feature of the file system itself and may limit the length and format of the extension, while others treat filename extensions as part of the filename without special distinction. Usage Filename extensions may be considered a type of metadata. They are commonly used to imply information about the way data might be stored in the file. The exact definition, giving the criteria for deciding what part of the file name is its extension, belongs to the rules of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
C (programming Language)
C (''pronounced like the letter c'') is a General-purpose language, general-purpose computer programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie, and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of the targeted CPUs. It has found lasting use in operating systems, device drivers, protocol stacks, though decreasingly for application software. C is commonly used on computer architectures that range from the largest supercomputers to the smallest microcontrollers and embedded systems. A successor to the programming language B (programming language), B, C was originally developed at Bell Labs by Ritchie between 1972 and 1973 to construct utilities running on Unix. It was applied to re-implementing the kernel of the Unix operating system. During the 1980s, C gradually gained popularity. It has become one of the measuring programming language popularity, most widely used programming languages, with C compilers avail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
