# Tutorial on the Snowcat❄🐱 Type Checker

In this tutorial, we introduce the Snowcat ❄ 🐱 type checker We give concrete steps on running the type checker and annotating a specification with types.

## Setup

We assume that you have Apalache installed. If not, check the manual page on Apalache installation. The minimal required version is 0.15.0.

## Running example: Two-phase commit

As a running example, we are using the well-understood specification of Two-phase commit by Leslie Lamport (written by Stephan Merz). We recommend to reproduce the steps in this tutorial. So, go ahead and download two specification files: TwoPhase.tla and TCommit.tla.

## Step 1: Running Snowcat

Before we start writing any type annotations, let's run the type checker and see, whether it complains:

$apalache typecheck TwoPhase.tla  The tool output is a bit verbose. Below, you can see the important lines of the output: ... PASS #1: TypeCheckerSnowcat > Running Snowcat .::. [TwoPhase.tla:51:30-51:31]: Undefined name RM. Introduce a type annotation. > Snowcat asks you to fix the types. Meow. ...  ## Step 2: Annotating RM In Step 1, Snowcat complained about the name RM. The reason for that is very simple: Snowcat does type analysis for each declaration in isolation. Hence, it failed, as soon as it met a reference to the constant RM in the definition of Message: CONSTANT RM \* The set of resource managers ... Message == ... [type : {"Prepared"}, rm : RM] \cup [type : {"Commit", "Abort"}]  Indeed, we have not introduced a type annotation for the constant RM, so the type checker cannot use any meaningful type in the context of the above expression. From the comment next to the declaration of RM, we see that RM is supposed to be a set of resource managers. We have plenty of choices here of what a resource manager could be. Let's keep it simple and say that a resource manager is simply a name. Hence, we say that RM is a set of strings. Let's add a type annotation: CONSTANT \* @type: Set(Str); RM \* The set of resource managers  Note that we had to put the annotation between the keyword CONSTANT and the identifier RM. We used the one-line TLA+ comment: \* @type: ...;. Alternatively, we could use the multi-line comment: (* @type: Set(Str); *). Importantly, the type annotation should end with a semi-colon: ;. Warning. If you want to write a type annotation on multiple lines, write it in a multi-line comment (* ... *) instead of starting multiple lines with a single-line comment \* .... See issue 718. ## Step 3: Running Snowcat again Having introduced the type annotation for RM, let's run the type checker again: $ apalache typecheck TwoPhase.tla


Snowcat does not complain about RM anymore. Now we get another message:

[TwoPhase.tla:68:6-68:12]: Undefined name rmState. Introduce a type annotation.


## Step 4: Annotating rmState

Similar to Step 2, we are missing a type annotation. This time the type checker complains about the variable rmState:

VARIABLES
rmState,       \* $rmState[rm]$ is the state of resource manager RM.


We can get a hint about the type of rmState from the type invariant TPTypeOK. It should be a function that, given a resource manager, produces one of the following strings: "working", "prepared", "committed", "aborted". So we need the function type: Str -> Str. Add the following type annotation:

VARIABLES
\* @type: Str -> Str;
rmState,       \* $rmState[rm]$ is the state of resource manager RM.


## Step 5: Getting one more type error by Snowcat

Guess what? Run the type checker again:

$apalache typecheck TwoPhase.tla  Snowcat does not complain about rmState anymore. But we are not done yet: [TwoPhase.tla:70:6-70:12]: Undefined name tmState. Introduce a type annotation.  ## Step 6: Annotating tmState This time we need a type annotation for the variable tmState. By inspecting TPTypeOK, we see that tmState is just a string. Add the following type annotation: VARIABLES (* ... *) \* @type: Str; tmState, \* The state of the transaction manager.  ## Step 7: Running Snowcat to see another error Run the type checker again: $ apalache typecheck TwoPhase.tla


You must have guessed that the type checker complains about the variable tmPrepared. Indeed, it just needs annotations for all CONSTANTS and VARIABLES:

[TwoPhase.tla:72:6-72:15]: Undefined name tmPrepared. Introduce a type annotation.


## Step 8: Annotating tmPrepared

At this step, we have to annotate tmPrepared. Let's have a look at the comment next to the declaration of tmPrepared:

VARIABLES
...
tmPrepared,    \* The set of RMs from which the TM has received $"Prepared"$
\* messages.


Hence, tmPrepared is a set of resource managers. This is what we write as a type annotation:

VARIABLES
(* ... *)
\* @type: Set(Str);
tmPrepared,    \* The set of RMs from which the TM has received $"Prepared"$
\* messages.


## Step 9: Running Snowcat again

You know that we have to run the type checker again:

$apalache typecheck TwoPhase.tla  It is no surprise that it complains about the variable msgs now: [TwoPhase.tla:74:6-74:9]: Undefined name msgs. Introduce a type annotation.  ## Step 10: Annotating msgs In the previous steps, it was quite easy to annotate variables. We would just look at how the variable is used, or read the comments, and add a type annotation. Figuring out the type of msgs is a bit harder. Let's look at the definitions of Messages and TPTypeOK: Message == ... [type : {"Prepared"}, rm : RM] \cup [type : {"Commit", "Abort"}] TPTypeOK == ... /\ msgs \subseteq Message  Now you should be able to see that msgs is a set that may contain three kinds of records: 1. The record [type |-> "Commit"], 2. The record [type |-> "Abort"], 3. A record [type |-> "Prepared", rm |-> r], for some r \in RM. This looks like an issue for the type checker, as it always requires the set elements to have the same type. However, the type checker did not complain about the expressions in Message and TPTypeOK. Why? Actually, the type checker allows records to be generalized to a type that contains additional fields. In the above definition of Messages, the set of records [type: {"Prepared"}, rm: RM] has the type Set([type: Str, rm: Str]). (Note that the record has the field called "type", which has nothing to do with our types.) Likewise, the set of records [type: {"Commit", "Abort"}] has the type Set([type: Str]). Both of these types can be unified to the common type: Set([type: Str, rm: Str])  The above type is actually what we need for the variable msgs. Let's annotate the variable with this type: VARIABLES (* ... *) \* @type: Set([type: Str, rm: Str]); msgs  ## Step 11: Running Snowcat and seeing no errors Let's see whether Snowcat is happy about our types now: $ apalache typecheck TwoPhase.tla


The type checker is happy. It has computed the types of all expressions:

 > Running Snowcat .::.
> All expressions are typed


# Discussion

To see the complete code, check TwoPhase.tla. Note that we have not touched the file TCommit.tla at all! The type checker has figured out all the types in it by itself. We have added five type annotations for 248 lines of code. Not bad.

It was quite easy to figure out the types of constants and variables in our example. As a rule, you always have to annotate constants and variables with types. Hence, we did not have to run the type checker five times to see the error messages.

Sometimes, the type checker cannot find a unique type of an expression. This usually happens when you declare an operator of a parameter that can be: a function, a tuple, a record, or a sequence (or a subset of these four types that has at least two elements). For instance, here is a definition from GameOfLifeTyped.tla:

Pos ==
{<<x, y>>: x, y \in 1..N}


Although it is absolutely clear that x and y have the type Int, the type of <<x, y>> is ambiguous. This expression can either be a tuple <<Int, Int>>, or a sequence Seq(Int). In this case, we have to help the type checker by annotating the operator definition:

\* @type: () => Set(<<Int, Int>>);
Pos ==
{<<x, y>>: x, y \in 1..N}


Since it is common to have operators that take no arguments, Snowcat supports the following syntax sugar:

\* @type: Set(<<Int, Int>>);
Pos ==
{<<x, y>>: x, y \in 1..N}