Unifying Decidable Entailments in Separation Logic with Inductive Definitions

TL;DR

This paper unifies three known decidable classes of entailment problems in Separation Logic with inductive definitions, showing they form a single, woexptime-complete class through new reductions.

Contribution

It generalizes the restricted class to a safe class, providing reductions that unify established, restricted, and safe classes into one woexptime-complete class.

Findings

All three classes are woexptime-complete.

The safe class strictly generalizes the restricted class.

Reductions unify the classes into a single decidable framework.

Abstract

The entailment problem $\varphi \models \psi$ in Separation Logic \cite{IshtiaqOHearn01,Reynolds02}, between separated conjunctions of equational ($x \iseq y$ and $x \not\iseq y$), spatial ($x \mapsto (y_1,\ldots,y_\rank)$) and predicate ($p(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$) atoms, interpreted by a finite set of inductive rules, is undecidable in general. Certain restrictions on the set of inductive definitions lead to decidable classes of entailment problems. Currently, there are two such decidable classes, based on two restrictions, called \emph{establishment} \cite{IosifRogalewiczSimacek13,KatelaanMathejaZuleger19,PZ20} and \emph{restrictedness} \cite{EIP21a}, respectively. Both classes are shown to be in \twoexptime\ by the independent proofs from \cite{PZ20} and \cite{EIP21a}, respectively, and a many-one reduction of established to restricted entailment problems has been given \cite{EIP21a}. In this paper, we strictly generalize the restricted class, by distinguishing the conditions that apply only to the left- ($\varphi$) and the right- ($\psi$) hand side of entailments, respectively. We provide a many-one reduction of this generalized class, called \emph{safe}, to the established class. Together with the reduction of established to restricted entailment problems, this new reduction closes the loop and shows that the three classes of entailment problems (respectively established, restricted and safe) form a single, unified, \twoexptime-complete class.