article

Specification guidelines to avoid the state space explosion problem

Authors:

Jan Friso Groote,

Tim W.D.M. Kouters,

Ammar OsaiweranAuthors Info & Claims

Software Testing, Verification & Reliability, Volume 25, Issue 1

Pages 4 - 33

https://doi.org/10.1002/stvr.1536

Published: 01 January 2015 Publication History

Abstract

During the last two decades, we modelled the behaviour of a large number of systems. We noted that different styles of modelling had quite an effect on the size of the state spaces of the modelled systems. The differences were so substantial that some specification styles led to far too many states to verify the correctness of the model, whereas with other styles, the number of states was so small that verification was a straightforward activity. In this article, we summarize our experience by providing seven specification guidelines to keep state spaces small. For each guideline, we provide an application, generally from the realm of traffic light controllers, for which we provide a 'bad' model with a large state space, and a 'good' model with a small state space. The good and bad models are both suitable for their purpose but are not behaviourally equivalent. For all guidelines, we discuss circumstances under which it is reasonable to apply the guidelines. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Cited By

Garavel HLang FMateescu R(2019)Compositional verification of asynchronous concurrent systems using CADPActa Informatica10.1007/s00236-015-0226-152:4-5(337-392)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00236-015-0226-1
(2018)Verifying integrity of exception handling in service-oriented softwareInternational Journal of Grid and Utility Computing10.1504/IJGUC.2017.0821338:1(7-21)Online publication date: 16-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1504/IJGUC.2017.082133
Di Pompeo DIncerto EMuttillo VPomante LValenete GBinder WCortellessa VKoziolek ASmirni EPoess M(2017)An Efficient Performance-Driven Approach for HW/SW Co-DesignProceedings of the 8th ACM/SPEC on International Conference on Performance Engineering10.1145/3030207.3030239(323-326)Online publication date: 17-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3030207.3030239
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cover image Software Testing, Verification & Reliability

Software Testing, Verification & Reliability Volume 25, Issue 1

January 2015

71 pages

ISSN:0960-0833

EISSN:1099-1689

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John Wiley and Sons Ltd.

United Kingdom

Publication History

Published: 01 January 2015

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Cited By

Garavel HLang FMateescu R(2019)Compositional verification of asynchronous concurrent systems using CADPActa Informatica10.1007/s00236-015-0226-152:4-5(337-392)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00236-015-0226-1
(2018)Verifying integrity of exception handling in service-oriented softwareInternational Journal of Grid and Utility Computing10.1504/IJGUC.2017.0821338:1(7-21)Online publication date: 16-Dec-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1504/IJGUC.2017.082133
Di Pompeo DIncerto EMuttillo VPomante LValenete GBinder WCortellessa VKoziolek ASmirni EPoess M(2017)An Efficient Performance-Driven Approach for HW/SW Co-DesignProceedings of the 8th ACM/SPEC on International Conference on Performance Engineering10.1145/3030207.3030239(323-326)Online publication date: 17-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3030207.3030239
Jakobs MWehrheim H(2017)Programs from ProofsACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/301442739:2(1-56)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3014427

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