Specifying Systems: The TLA+ Language and Tools for Hardware and Software Engineers

This work shows how to write unambiguous specifications of complex computer systems. The first part provides a concise and lucid introduction to specification, explaining how to describe, with mathematical precision, the behavioural properties of a system - what that system is allowed to do. The emphasis here is on safety properties. The second part covers more advanced topics, including liveness and fairness, real time properties, and composition. The books final two parts provide a complete reference manual for the TLA+ language and tools, as well as a mini-manual.