Mechanical Translation of I/O Automaton Specifications into First-Order Logic

We describe a tool that improves the process of verifying relations between descriptions of a distributed algorithm at different levels of abstraction using interactive proof assistants. The tool automatically translates algorithms, written in the IOA language, into first-order logic, expressed in the Larch Shared Language, in a style that facilitates reasoning with a theorem prover. The translation uses a unified strategy to handle the various forms of nondeterminism that appear in abstract system descriptions. Applications of the tool to verify safety properties of three data management algorithms, including a substantial example based on Lamport’s logical time algorithm, suggest that the tool can be used to validate complicated, practical designs.