The serializability problem for a temporal logic of transaction queries

Abstract

We define the logic FOTLT(n), to be a monadic monodic fragment of first-order linear temporal logic, with 2n propositions representing the read and write steps of n two-step concurrent database transactions and a time-dependent predicate representing queries giving the sets of data items accessed by those read and write steps at given points in time. The models of FOTLT(n) contain interleaved sequences of the steps of infinitely many occurrences of the n transactions accessing unlimited data over time. A property of serializability is specified for FOTLT(n) formulae. We show that the serializability problem for FOTLT(n) formulae is decidable.