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We address the problem of verifying automatically procedural programs manipulating parametric-size arrays of integers, encoded as a constrained Horn clauses solving problem. We propose a new algorithmic method for synthesizing loop…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2025-05-23 Ahmed Bouajjani , Wael-Amine Boutglay , Peter Habermehl

We present a verification technique for program safety that combines Iterated Specialization and Interpolating Horn Clause Solving. Our new method composes together these two techniques in a modular way by exploiting the common Horn Clause…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2014-12-04 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Jorge A. Navas , Maurizio Proietti

Program verification and synthesis frameworks that allow one to customize the language in which one is interested typically require the user to provide a formally defined semantics for the language. Because writing a formal semantics can be…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2024-09-10 Jiangyi Liu , Charlie Murphy , Anvay Grover , Keith J. C. Johnson , Thomas Reps , Loris D'Antoni

Despite decades of research, there are still a number of concepts commonly found in software programs that are considered challenging for verification: among others, such concepts include concurrency, and the compositional analysis of…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2013-02-19 Philipp Rümmer , Hossein Hojjat , Viktor Kuncak

This paper presents a verification framework based on a new class of predicate Constraint Satisfaction Problems called pCSP where constraints are represented as clauses modulo first-order theories over function variables and predicate…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2020-07-08 Hiroshi Unno , Yuki Satake , Tachio Terauchi , Eric Koskinen

We present a method for verifying the correctness of imperative programs which is based on the automated transformation of their specifications. Given a program prog, we consider a partial correctness specification of the form $\{\varphi\}$…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2020-02-19 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Alberto Pettorossi , Maurizio Proietti

One of the main challenges in software verification is efficient and precise compositional analysis of programs with procedures and loops. Interpolation methods remain one of the most promising techniques for such verification, and are…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2013-01-22 Philipp Rümmer , Hossein Hojjat , Viktor Kuncak

Programs that manipulate tree-shaped data structures often require complex, specialized proofs that are difficult to generalize and automate. This paper introduces a unified, foundational approach to verifying such programs. Central to our…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2025-05-21 Marco Faella , Gennaro Parlato

We address the problem of verifying the satisfiability of Constrained Horn Clauses (CHCs) based on theories of inductively defined data structures, such as lists and trees. We propose a transformation technique whose objective is the…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-10-23 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Alberto Pettorossi , Maurizio Proietti

Motivated by applications in automated verification of higher-order functional programs, we develop a notion of constrained Horn clauses in higher-order logic and a decision problem concerning their satisfiability. We show that, although…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2017-08-02 Toby Cathcart Burn , C. -H. Luke Ong , Steven J. Ramsay

Heap-manipulating programs are known to be challenging to reason about. We present a novel verifier for heap-manipulating programs called S2TD, which encodes programs systematically in the form of Constrained Horn Clauses (CHC) using a…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2022-09-21 Quang Loc Le , Jun Sun , Long H. Pham , Shengchao Qin

The use of temporal logics has long been recognised as a fundamental approach to the formal specification and verification of reactive systems. In this paper, we take on the problem of automatically verifying a temporal property, given by a…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2016-07-18 Tewodros A. Beyene , Corneliu Popeea , Andrey Rybalchenko

Automatically verifying safety properties of programs is hard, and it is even harder if the program acts upon arrays or other forms of maps. Many approaches exist for verifying programs operating upon Boolean and integer values (e.g.…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2015-10-01 David Monniaux , Laure Gonnord

We present HornStr, the first solver for invariant synthesis for Regular Model Checking (RMC) with the specification provided in the SMT-LIB 2.6 theory of strings. It is well-known that invariant synthesis for RMC subsumes various important…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-05-27 Hongjian Jiang , Anthony W. Lin , Oliver Markgraf , Philipp Rümmer , Daniel Stan

We present a method for automatic inference of conditions on the initial states of a program that guarantee that the safety assertions in the program are not violated. Constrained Horn clauses (CHCs) are used to model the program and…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-04-18 Bishoksan Kafle , John P. Gallagher , Graeme Gange , Peter Schachte , Harald Sondergaard , Peter J. Stuckey

Constrained Horn Clauses (CHCs) are widely adopted as intermediate representations for a variety of verification tasks, including safety checking, invariant synthesis, and interprocedural analysis. This paper introduces CHCVERIF, a…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-10-31 Mihály Dobos-Kovács , Levente Bajczi , András Vörös

We address the problem of verifying that the functions of a program meet their contracts, specified by pre/postconditions. We follow an approach based on constrained Horn clauses (CHCs) by which the verification problem is reduced to the…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2022-09-08 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Alberto Pettorossi , Maurizio Proietti

In this paper we show that checking satisfiability of a set of non-linear Horn clauses (also called a non-linear Horn clause program) can be achieved using a solver for linear Horn clauses. We achieve this by interleaving a program…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2016-07-18 Bishoksan Kafle , John P. Gallagher , Pierre Ganty

We report on work in progress on automatic procedures for proving properties of programs written in higher-order functional languages. Our approach encodes higher-order programs directly as first-order SMT problems over Horn clauses. It is…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2013-06-25 Nikolaj Bjorner , Ken McMillan , Andrey Rybalchenko

The proof of a program property can be reduced to the proof of satisfiability of a set of constrained Horn clauses (CHCs) which can be automatically generated from the program and the property. In this paper we have conducted a case study…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2019-07-10 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Alberto Pettorossi , Maurizio Proietti