Related papers: A Tutorial on Using Dafny to Construct Verified So…
Recent verification tools aim to make formal verification more accessible to software engineers by automating most of the verification process. However, annotating conventional programs with the formal specification and verification…
Formal software verification uses mathematical techniques to establish that software has certain properties. For example, that the behaviour of a software system satisfies certain logically-specified properties. Formal methods have a long…
This paper presents a focused literature survey on the use of large language models (LLM) to assist in writing formal specifications for software. A summary of thirty-five key papers is presented, including examples for specifying programs…
In verification-aware languages, such as Dafny, despite their critical role, specifications are as prone to error as implementations. Flaws in specifications can result in formally verified programs that deviate from the intended behavior.…
A program verifier is a tool that can be used to verify that a "contract" for a program holds - i.e. given a precondition the program guarantees that a given postcondition holds - by only working at the level of the annotated program. An…
We present VERIFAI, a software toolkit for the formal design and analysis of systems that include artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) components. VERIFAI particularly seeks to address challenges with applying formal…
While the use of formal verification techniques is well established in the development of mission-critical software, it is still rare in the production of most other kinds of software. We share our experience that a formal verification tool…
Formal verification provides strong guarantees of correctness of software, which are especially important in safety or security critical systems. Hoare logic is a widely used formalism for rigorous verification of software against…
We build a SAT solver implementing the DPLL algorithm in the verification-enabled programming language Dafny. The resulting solver is fully verified (soundness, completeness and termination are computer checked). We benchmark our Dafny…
Formal Methods are mathematically-based techniques for software design and engineering, which enable the unambiguous description of and reasoning about a system's behaviour. Autonomous systems use software to make decisions without human…
Automatic verification deals with the validation by means of computers of correctness certificates. The related tools, usually called proof assistants or interactive provers, provide an interactive environment for the creation of formal…
This work presents a model-based development methodology for verified software systems as well as a tool support for it: an applied AutoFocus tool chain and its basic principles emphasizing the verification of the system under development…
This tutorial provides an introduction to CPAchecker for users. CPAchecker is a flexible and configurable framework for software verification and testing. The framework provides many abstract domains, such as BDDs, explicit values,…
Software correctness is ensured mathematically through formal verification, which involves the resources of generating formal requirement specifications and having an implementation that must be verified. Tools such as model-checkers and…
Dynamically typed object-oriented languages enable programmers to write elegant, reusable and extensible programs. However, with the current methodology for program verification, the absence of static type information creates significant…
Program verifiers such as Dafny automate proofs by outsourcing them to an SMT solver. This automation is not perfect, however, and the solver often requires hints in the form of assertions, creating a burden for the proof engineer. In this…
Highly automated theorem provers like Dafny allow users to prove simple properties with little effort, making it easy to quickly sketch proofs. The drawback is that such provers leave users with little control about the proof search,…
Despite the vast body of research literature proposing algorithms with formal guarantees, the amount of verifiable code in today's systems remains minimal. This discrepancy stems from the inherent difficulty of verifying code, particularly…
Critical software systems face stringent requirements in safety, security, and reliability due to the circumstances surrounding their operation. Safety and security have progressively gained importance over the years due to the integration…
The goal of this paper is to help mainstream programmers routinely use formal verification on their smart contracts by 1) proposing a new YAML-format for writing general-purpose formal specifications, 2) demonstrating how a formal…