Hoare Logic - Partial and Total Correctness

Partial and Total Correctness

Standard Hoare logic proves only partial correctness, while termination needs to be proved separately. Thus the intuitive reading of a Hoare triple is: Whenever P holds of the state before the execution of C, then Q will hold afterwards, or C does not terminate. Note that if C does not terminate, then there is no "after", so Q can be any statement at all. Indeed, one can choose Q to be false to express that C does not terminate.

Total correctness can also be proven with an extended version of the While rule.

Read more about this topic:  Hoare Logic

Famous quotes containing the words partial and, partial, total and/or correctness:

    There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man’s title to fame. Only those books come down which deserve to last.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    It is characteristic of the epistemological tradition to present us with partial scenarios and then to demand whole or categorical answers as it were.
    Avrum Stroll (b. 1921)

    I find myself ... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
    Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

    What will happen once the authentic mass man takes over, we do not know yet, although it may be a fair guess that he will have more in common with the meticulous, calculated correctness of Himmler than with the hysterical fanaticism of Hitler, will more resemble the stubborn dullness of Molotov than the sensual vindictive cruelty of Stalin.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)