Designs with Angelic Nondeterminism

Pedro Ribeiro, Ana Cavalcanti
2013 2013 International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Software Engineering  
The Unifying Theories of Programming (UTP) of Hoare and He is a predicative framework of relations suitable for the rigorous study of different programming paradigms. It promotes the reuse of results through the linking of theories. Particular aspects of programs can also be studied in isolation. In the UTP, the theory of designs provides not only a model for terminating programs (where pre and postcondition pairs can be specified), but also a basis for characterising state-rich concurrent and
more » ... eactive programs. These are programs whose interactions with the environment cannot simply be described by relations between inputs and outputs. In this context, process calculi such as Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) and Circus have been given semantics in the UTP through the theory of reactive designs. Angelic nondeterminism is a useful specification construct that allows for a high degree of abstraction. It has traditionally been studied within the refinement calculus. Previous work has proposed a theory of angelic nondeterminism in the UTP through a predicative model of binary multirelations. Such models, however, can only model terminating programs. In this report we propose a new UTP theory of designs with angelic nondeterminism with the long-term aim of developing a model for process calculi. Acronyms 158 Bibliography 159
doi:10.1109/tase.2013.18 dblp:conf/tase/RibeiroC13 fatcat:dq35raedvfband47q7sjcejdmm