Verifying SOS specifications

Abstract

A Protean specification language[Blo95] provides general Structured Operational Semantics (SOS) definitional facilities, supported by the appropriate theory. This is in contrast to traditional specification languages, where the set of operations is fixed. In [DB95a], a BDD-based model checker parametrized by SOS definitions was introduced. In this paper, we show how this model checker can be used in the verification and refinement of Protean language specifications. In specifying an elevator control system, we discover a bug in an earlier Z specification. We also demonstrate the generality of our approach by using SOS definitions to represent and verify Petri nets.