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# Command-line tools installed by Spot 2.3.4

## Table of Contents

- Conventions
- Documentation common to multiple tools
- Command-line tools
- Man pages
- Advanced use-cases
- Citing

This document introduces command-line tools that are installed with the Spot library. We give some examples to highlight possible use-cases but shall not attempt to cover all features exhaustively (please check the man pages for further inspiration).

## Conventions

For technical reasons related to the way we generate these pages, we use the following convention when rendering shell commands. The commands issued to the shell are formatted like this with a cyan line on the left:

    echo Hello World

And the output of such a command is formatted as follows, with a magenta line on the left:

    Hello World

Parts of these documents (e.g., lists of options) are actually the results of shell commands and will be presented as above, even if the corresponding commands are hidden.

## Documentation common to multiple tools

- common input and output options for LTL/PSL formulas
- common output options for automata
- input and output support for the HOA format

## Command-line tools

- `randltl` Generate random LTL/PSL formulas.
- `ltlfilt` Filter, convert, and transform LTL/PSL formulas.
- `genltl` Generate LTL formulas from scalable patterns.
- `ltl2tgba` Translate LTL/PSL formulas into Büchi automata.
- `ltl2tgta` Translate LTL/PSL formulas into Testing automata.
- `ltlcross` Cross-compare LTL/PSL-to-automata translators.
- `ltlgrind` List formulas similar to but simpler than a given LTL/PSL formula.
- `dstar2tgba` Convert ω-automata with any acceptance into variants of Büchi automata.
- `randaut` Generate random ω-automata.
- `autfilt` Filter, convert, and transform ω-automata.
- `ltldo` Run LTL/PSL formulas through other tools using common input and output interfaces.

## Man pages

In addition to the above illustrated documentation, Spot also installs man pages for all these tools. These man pages are mostly generated automatically from the `--help` output of each tool, and often completed with additional text (like examples or bibliography). For convenience, you can browse their HTML versions:

`autfilt`(1), `dstar2tgba`(1), `genltl`(1), `ltl2tgba`(1), `ltl2tgta`(1), `ltlcross`(1), `ltldo`(1), `ltlfilt`(1), `randaut`(1), `randltl`(1), `spot-x`(7), `spot`(7).

## Advanced use-cases

- Reading and writing CSV files
- SAT-based minimization of Deterministic ω-Automata
- Exploring the temporal hierarchy of Manna & Pnueli

## Citing

If some of these tools have played a significant role in a work that lead to some academic publication, please consider citing Spot. Our citing page has a list of papers you could cite.

Additionally, the man pages of these tools also contains additional references about the algorithms or data sources used.