Temporal Logic

CSE 510

Stanley Bak

[Some slides from Sayan Mitra and Sridhar Duggirala]

Turing Awards
1996 - Amir Pnueli - “for seminal work introducing
temporal logic into computing science and for
outstanding contributions to program and system
verification.”

2007 - Ed Clarke, E. Allen Emerson and Joseph Sifakis

- “for their role in developing model checking into a
highly effective verification technology that is widely
adopted in the hardware and software industries.”

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Why Temporal Logic?
Properties over infinite executions

The state of a system changes over time

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Why Temporal Logic?
Properties over infinite executions

The state of a system changes over time

Discrete time vs continuous time
Linear view of time vs branching view of time

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Why Temporal Logic?
User creates a model (and defines initial states)
User creates a property
Model-checking automatically checks:

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Note on Temporal Logic
Understanding the semantics of a temporal logic
formula can be difficult

Industrial applications often instead use structured

English expressions, which behind-the-scenes map to
temporal logic expressions

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Temporal Logic Setup
User creates a model (and defines initial states)
User creates a property
Model-checking automatically checks:

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Temporal Logic Setup
User creates a model (and defines initial states)
User creates a property
Model-checking automatically checks:

? ?

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What is a Model (and start state)?

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Infinite Execution Paths
Model + Start States + infinite executions is called a
Kripke Structure

Note: we assume the model executes forever (no

deadlocks)

Practically not much of a difference since we can add

self-loops

A path is an infinite sequence of states

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Infinite Execution Tree

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Mutual Exclusion Properties
Two processes, each with three states:

ni: non-critical section

ti: trying to enter critical section
ci: in critical section

Temporal Logic Requirements:

Safety: One process in the critical section at a time
Liveness: Whenever a process tries to enter the critical section,
it eventually does
Non-blocking: A process can always try to enter its critical
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Mutual Exclusion Properties
Safety: One process in the critical section at a time
Liveness: Whenever a process tries to enter the critical section,
it eventually does
Non-blocking: A process can always try to enter its critical
section

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Mutual Exclusion Trial 2

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Linear Temporal Logic
(LTL) Introduction Slides

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LTL Example #1

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LTL Example #1

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LTL Example #2

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LTL Example #2

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Mini Assignment - write in LTL

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Mini Assignment - write in LTL

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Mini Assignment - write in LTL

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Mini Assignment - write in LTL

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Things you cannot express in LTL

Why not?

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