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We address the problem of proving the satisfiability of Constrained Horn Clauses (CHCs) with Algebraic Data Types (ADTs), such as lists and trees. We propose a new technique for transforming CHCs with ADTs into CHCs where predicates are…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2020-10-05 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Alberto Pettorossi , Maurizio Proietti

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

Higher-order constrained Horn clauses (HoCHC) are a semantically-invariant system of higher-order logic modulo theories. With semi-decidable unsolvability over a semi-decidable background theory, HoCHC is suitable for safety verification.…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2021-09-13 Jerome Jochems

We present a compositional SMT-based algorithm for safety of procedural C programs that takes the heap into consideration as well. Existing SMT-based approaches are either largely restricted to handling linear arithmetic operations and…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2015-08-07 Anvesh Komuravelli , Nikolaj Bjorner , Arie Gurfinkel , Kenneth L. McMillan

We show how automatic tools for the verification of linear and branching time properties of procedural, multi-threaded, and functional programs as well as program synthesis can be naturally and uniformly seen as solvers of constraints in…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2014-06-02 Andrey Rybalchenko

Reduction to the satisfiability problem for constrained Horn clauses (CHCs) is a widely studied approach to automated program verification. The current CHC-based methods for pointer-manipulating programs, however, are not very scalable.…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2020-06-12 Yusuke Matsushita , Takeshi Tsukada , Naoki Kobayashi

Constrained Horn Clauses (CHCs) are an intermediate program representation that can be generated by several verification tools, and that can be processed and solved by a number of Horn solvers. One of the main challenges when using CHCs in…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2021-04-12 Zafer Esen , Philipp Rümmer

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

Verification of higher-order probabilistic programs is a challenging problem. We present a verification method that supports several quantitative properties of higher-order probabilistic programs. Usually, extending verification methods to…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2024-07-04 Satoshi Kura , Hiroshi Unno

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

Building on the successes of satisfiability modulo theories (SMT), Bj{\o}rner et al. initiated a research programme advocating Horn constraints as a suitable basis for automatic program verification. The notion of first-order constrained…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2019-02-25 Long Pham , Steven J. Ramsay , C. -H. Luke Ong

We present a recursive formulation of the Horn algorithm for deciding the satisfiability of propositional clauses. The usual presentations in imperative pseudo-code are informal and not suitable for simple proofs of its main properties. By…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-09-14 António Ravara

Constrained Horn Clauses (CHCs) have conventionally been used as a low-level representation in formal verification. Most existing solvers use a diverse set of specialized techniques, including direct state space traversal or…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2024-04-24 Márk Somorjai , Mihály Dobos-Kovács , Zsófia Ádám , Levente Bajczi , András Vörös

Relational verification is a technique that aims at proving properties that relate two different program fragments, or two different program runs. It has been shown that constrained Horn clauses (CHCs) can effectively be used for relational…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2017-09-15 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Alberto Pettorossi , Maurizio Proietti

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

We present a first-order theorem proving framework for establishing the correctness of functional programs implementing sorting algorithms with recursive data structures. We formalize the semantics of recursive programs in many-sorted…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2024-03-07 Pamina Georgiou , Márton Hajdu , Laura Kovács

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

Despite the recent progress of automated program verification techniques, fully automated verification of programs manipulating recursive data structures remains a challenge. We introduce solvable tuple patterns (STPs) and conjunctive STPs…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Naoki Kobayashi , Ryosuke Sato , Ayumi Shinohara , Ryo Yoshinaka

We present a method for verifying properties of time-aware business processes, that is, business process where time constraints on the activities are explicitly taken into account. Business processes are specified using an extension of the…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2016-08-10 Emanuele De Angelis , Fabio Fioravanti , Maria Chiara Meo , Alberto Pettorossi , Maurizio Proietti

In this paper, we show how the notion of tree dimension can be used in the verification of constrained Horn clauses (CHCs). The dimension of a tree is a numerical measure of its branching complexity and the concept here applies to Horn…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-03-07 Bishoksan Kafle , John P. Gallagher , Pierre Ganty