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Pushdown Specifications

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2514))

Abstract

Traditionally, model checking is applied to finite-state systems and regular specifications. While researchers have successfully extended the applicability of model checking to infinite-state systems, almost all existing work still consider regular specification formalisms. There are, however, many interesting non-regular properties one would like to model check.

In this paper we study model checking of pushdown specifications. Our specification formalism is nondeterministic pushdown parity tree automata (PD-NPT). We show that the model-checking problem for regular systems and PD-NPT specifications can be solved in time exponential in the system and the specification. Our model-checking algorithm involves a new solution to the nonemptiness problem of nondeterministic pushdown tree automata, where we improve the best known upper bound from a triple-exponential to a single exponential. We also consider the model-checking problem for context-free systems and PD-NPT specifications and show that it is undecidable.

Supported in part by BSF grant 9800096.

Supported in part by NSF grants CCR-9988322,IIS-9908435,IIS-9978135, and EIA-0086264, by BSF grant 9800096, and by a grant from the Intel Corporation.

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Kupferman, O., Piterman, N., Vardi, M.Y. (2002). Pushdown Specifications. In: Baaz, M., Voronkov, A. (eds) Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning. LPAR 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2514. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36078-6_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36078-6_18

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00010-5

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