How to prove or model check a theorem in TLA+? - tla+

The below module declares a set of numbers that are in the range 10 to 99 that are divisible by 2 only once and call it NumbersThatDivideBy2Once. At the end it declares a theorem that the constant input is a subset of NumbersThatDivideBy2Once.
--------------------------- MODULE TestModule ---------------------------
EXTENDS Naturals
CONSTANT input
Numbers == { n \in Nat : n > 9 /\ n < 100 }
DividesBy2(n) == (n % 2) = 0
DividesBy2Once(n) == DividesBy2(n) /\ ~DividesBy2(n \div 2)
NumbersThatDivideBy2Once == { n \in Numbers: DividesBy2Once(n) }
THEOREM input \subseteq NumbersThatDivideBy2Once
=======================
How can I check if this theorem holds for a given input? If I run a model check with a provided set of numbers as input, even if some of those numbers are not part of NumbersThatDivideBy2Once I still get no errors.

Give your theorem a name,
THEOREM T == input \subseteq NumbersThatDivideBy2Once
Go to the "Model Checking Results" tab, and in "Evaluate Constant Expression" introduce T, in order for it to be evaluated.
Your model checker needs to be told what to do with the specification file, which is essentially a just collection of mathematical definitions.
In "normal use" you want to provide TLC a temporal formula representing your specification (usually given the nameSpec in the specification file). You introduce it in the "model overview" tab, under "what is the behaviour spec?". And that is what TLC uses to perform model checking.
In this case you don't have that. So just keep the option "no behaviour spec" and, as indicated above, specify in the "Model Checking Results" tab the constant expression you want to evaluate.

Related

\in works, while \subseteq gives a "identifier undefined" error

I have the following spec:
------------------------------ MODULE Group ------------------------------
CONSTANTS People
VARIABLES members
Init == members \subseteq People
Next == members' = members
Group == Init /\ [][Next]_members
=============================================================================
(I simplified this spec to the point where it's not doing anything useful.)
When I try to run it through TLC, I get the following error:
In evaluation, the identifier members is either undefined or not an operator.
The error points to the Init line.
When I change the Init line to:
Init == members \in People
it validates fine.
I want the former functionality because I mean for members to be a collection of People, not a single person.
According to section 16.1.6 of Leslie Lamport's Specifying Systems, "TLA+ provides the following operators on sets:" and lists both \in and \subseteq.
Why is TLA+ not letting me use \subseteq?
While that is a valid TLA+ expression, TLC can only assign next-state values to a variable x by the statements x' = e or x' \in S. See section 14.2.6 for details. This holds for the initial assignment, too. In your case, you probably want members \in SUBSET People.

How to interpret this discussion of Verilog relational operators

This discussion of Verilog relational operators at ASIC World clearly has at least one mistake:
The result is a scalar value (example a < b)
0 if the relation is false (a is bigger then b)
1 if the relation is true (a is smaller then b)
x if any of the operands has unknown x bits (if a or b contains X)
Note: If any operand is x or z, then the result of that test is
treated as false (0)
Clearly, "a is bigger than b" should be "a is bigger than or equal to b".
There is something else that looks wrong to me, but I don't know if it's just because I'm a Verilog novice. The last bullet point seems to contradict the subsequent note, unless there is a difference between an operand having all unknown bits (in which case the result of a relational operator will be x) and an operand being x (in which case the result will be 0).
Is there a difference between an operand being x and all of its bits being X? I know Verilog is case-sensitive.
verilog is known for its x-propagation pessimism.
From lrm 11.4.4
An expression using these relational operators shall yield the scalar value 0 if the specified relation is false
or the value 1 if it is true. If either operand of a relational operator contains an unknown (x) or highimpedance
(z) value, then the result shall be a 1-bit unknown value (x).
so, if any of the values contains 'x' bits the result will be 'x'.
Now in case, when the result is used as a conditional expression, the if statement will take true brunch if and only if the result is '1'. Otherwise it will take the false branch. Also, there are conversion rules in verilog, where x and z values are converted to 0 in binary operations, which conditional operation is.
so, the comment on the site is correct, it is talking of the results of a test (as in if statement)
If any operand is x or z, then the result of that test is treated as false (0)
I think you should take your comments to the author of that website.
I take the statement inside the ()'s to be an example
1 if the relation is true (if for example, a is smaller then b)
The subsequent note refers to a more general issue not specific to relational operators. When you have
if (expression) true_statement; else false_statement;
When expression evaluates to an X or 0, the false_statement branch is taken.
Also, Verilog is not case sensitive about numeric literals. 'habcxz and 'hABCXZ are equivalent.

How do I model-check a module that depends on an unbound variable?

I'm going through Specifying Systems right now and I'm a little puzzled about how I'd model-check the following module:
---------------------------- MODULE BoundedFIFO ----------------------------
EXTENDS Naturals, Sequences
VARIABLES in, out
CONSTANT Message, N
ASSUME (N \in Nat) /\ (N > 0)
Inner(q) == INSTANCE InnerFIFO
BNext(q) == /\ Inner(q)!Next
/\ Inner(q)!BufRcv => (Len(q) < N)
Spec == \EE q : Inner(q)!Init /\ [][BNext(q)]_<<in, out, q>>
=============================================================================
I see that both the Init and BNext formulas are operators, parameterized by q. How would I supply this to the model checker?
You can't: \E x : P(x) is an unbounded expression, which TLC cannot handle. Many of the specs in Specifying Systems can't be modeled. More recent guides, such as the TLA+ Hyperbook or Learn TLA+, are more careful to keep all of their specs modelable.

Unexpected results in playing with relations

/*
sig a {
}
sig b {
}
*/
pred rel_test(r : univ -> univ) {
# r = 1
}
run {
some r : univ -> univ {
rel_test [r]
}
} for 2
Running this small test, $r contains one element in every generated instance. When sig a and sig b are uncommented, however, the first instance is this:
In my explanation, $r has 9 tuples here and still, the predicate which asks for a one tuple relation succeeds. Where am I wrong?
An auxiliary question: are these two declarations equivalent?
pred rel_test(r : univ -> univ)
pred rel_test(r : set univ -> univ)
The problem is that with the Forbid Overflow option set to No the integer semantics in Alloy is wrap around, and with the default scope of 3 (bits), then indeed 9=1, as you can confirm in the evaluator.
With the signatures a and b commented the biggest relation that can be generated with scope 2 has 4 tuples (since the max size of univ is 2), so the problem does not occur.
It also does not occur in the latest build because I believe it comes with the Forbid Overflow option set to Yes by default, and with that option the semantics of integers rules out instances where overflows occur, precisely the case when you compute the size of the relation with 9 tuples. More details about this alternative integer semantics can be found in the paper "Preventing arithmetic overflows in Alloy" by Aleksandar Milicevic and Daniel Jackson.
On the main question: what version of Alloy are you using? I'm unable to replicate the behavior you describe (using Alloy 4.2 of 22 Feb 2015 on OS X 10.6.8).
On the auxiliary question: it appears so. (The language reference is not quite as explicit as one might wish, but it begins one part of its discussion of multiplicities with "If the right-hand expression denotes a unary relation ..." and (in what I take to be the context so defined) "the default multiplicity is one"; the conditional would make no sense if the default multiplicity were always one.
On the other hand, the same interpretive logic would lead to the conclusion that the language reference believes that unary multiplicity keywords are only allowed before expressions denoting unary relations (which would appear to make r: set univ -> univ ungrammatical). But Alloy accepts the expression and parses it as set (univ -> univ). (The alternative parse, (set univ) -> univ, would be very hard to assign a meaning to.)

Haskell and Lambda-Calculus: Implementing Alpha-Congruence (Alpha-Equivalence)

I am implementing an impure untyped lambda-calculus interpreter in Haskell.
I'm presently stuck on implementing "alpha-congruence" (also called "alpha-equivalence" or "alpha-equality" in some textbooks). I want to be able to check whether two lambda-expressions are equal or not equal to each other. For example, if I enter the following expression into the interpreter it should yield True (\ is used to indicate the lambda symbol):
>\x.x == \y.y
True
The problem is understanding whether the following lambda-expressions are considered alpha-equivalent or not:
>\x.xy == \y.yx
???
>\x.yxy == \z.wzw
???
In the case of \x.xy == \y.yx I would guess that the answer is True. This is because \x.xy => \z.zy and \y.yx => \z.zy and the right-hand sides of both are equal (where the symbol => is used to denote alpha-reduction).
In the cae of \x.yxy == \z.wzw I would likewise guess that the answer is True. This is because \x.yxy => \a.yay and \z.wzw => \a.waw which (I think) are equal.
The trouble is that all of my textbooks' definitions state that only the names of the bound variables need to be changed for two lambda-expressions to be considered equal. It says nothing about the free variables in an expression needing to be renamed uniformly also. So even though y and w are both in their correct places in the lambda-expressions, how would the program "know" that the first y represents the first w and the second y represents the second w. I would need to be consistent about this in an implementation.
In short, how would I go about implementing an error-free version of a function isAlphaCongruent? What are the exact rules that I need to follow in order for this to work?
I would prefer to do this without using de Bruijn indices.
You are misunderstanding: different free variables are not alpha equivalent. So y /= x, and \w.wy /= \w.wx, and \x.xy /= \y.yx. Similarly, \x.yxy /= \z.wzw because y /= w.
Your book says nothing about free variables being allowed to be uniformly renamed because they are not allowed to be uniformly renamed.
(Think of it this way: if I haven't yet told you the definition of not and id, would you expect \x. not x and \x. id x to be equivalent? I sure hope not!)

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