A Modal Logic for Termgraph Rewriting

Abstract: We propose a modal logic tailored to describe graph transformations and discuss some of its properties. We focus on a particular class of graphs called termgraphs. They are first-order terms augmented with sharing and cycles. Termgraphs allow one to describe classical data-structures (possibly with pointers) such as doubly-linked lists, circular lists etc. We show how the proposed logic can faithfully describe (i) termgraphs as well as (ii) the application of a termgraph rewrite rule (i.e. matching and replacement) and (iii) the computation of normal forms with respect to a given rewrite system. We also show how the proposed logic, which is more expressive than propositional dynamic logic, can be used to specify shapes of classical data-structures (e.g. binary trees, circular lists etc.).