Multiple Ways to Fail: Generalizing a Monitor’s Verdict for the Classification of Execution Traces

Abstract

This paper introduces a new approach at classifying event traces, generalizing a monitor’s classical two- or three-valued outcome. Given the specification of a system’s behaviour expressed as a Linear Temporal Logic formula, we produce from the evaluation of the formula on a given trace a data structure called a trace hologram. When interpreted as equivalence classes, we show how manipulations on these holograms cluster event traces into various natural categories, depending on the precise way in which each group of traces violate the specification.