Model checking of state-rich formalism by linking to $$CSP\,\Vert \,B$$ C S P ‖ B

Abstract

Since state-rich formalism Circus is a combination of Z, CSP, refinement calculus and Dijkstra's guarded commands, its model checking is intrinsically more complicated and difficult than that of individual state-based languages or process algebras. Current solutions translate executable constructs of Circus programs to Java with JCSP, or translate them to CSP processes. Data aspects of Circus programs are expressed in the Java programming language or as CSP processes. Both of them have disadvantages. This work presents a new approach to model-checking Circus by linking it to CSP B, then we utilise ProB to model-check and animate the CSP B program. The most significant advantage of this approach is the direct mapping of the state part in Circus to Z and finally to B, which maintains the high-level abstraction of data specification. In addition, introduction of deadlock, invariant violation checking, LTL formula checking and animation is another key advantage. We present our approach, a link definition for a subset of Circus constructs, as well as a popular case study (reactive buffer) to show the practical usability of our work. We conclude with a discussion of related work, advantages and potential limitations of our approach, and future work.

Circus2CSP: A Tool for Model-Checking Circus Using FDR

“…However, with Circus2CSP, we were able to go beyond the range 0 up to 90 in less than a minute. Such a result demonstrated that our approach is capable of handling large-scale case studies like the haemodialysis machine [12] and the ring buffer [38,26].…”

“…Finally, we compare different approaches for modeling the Ring Buffer case study [26,38], using FDR, in order to test the capabilities of our tool while modelchecking the translated models, in contrast to the limitations of ProB [19]. Unfortunately, the structure defined for our translation strategy is not fully supported by ProB, which was used to test the model generated with the translation strategy from Ye [38]. ProB is another model-checker, which was originally developed for the B language, and was extended to support CSP, Z, Event-B [1], as well as combined languages such as CSP||B.…”

Temporal Reasoning Through Automatic Translation of tock-CSP into Timed Automata

“…Apart from CSP and TA, model transformations have been used for improving various formal modelling notations. For instance, Circus has been translated into CSP||B for using the tool ProB for automatic verification [36]. Additionally, the language B has been translated into TLA+ for automatic validation with TLC [18].…”

Software Architecture of Modern Model Checkers

“…CSP has also been a popular target for domain specific formalisms such as Casper [54] for security protocols or Circus [74]. For the latter there is also a recent translation to CSP B [75], and Circus itself is sometimes the target for other formalisms such as UML [16].…”