Related papers: Automated Verification of Tree-Manipulating Progra…
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…
We present Ultimate TreeAutomizer, a solver for satisfiability of sets of constrained Horn clauses. Constrained Horn clauses (CHC) are a fragment of first order logic with attractive properties in terms of expressiveness and accessibility…
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…
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…
Several techniques and tools have been developed for verification of properties expressed as Horn clauses with constraints over a background theory (CHC). Current CHC verification tools implement intricate algorithms and are often limited…
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…
This paper surveys recent work on applying analysis and transformation techniques that originate in the field of constraint logic programming (CLP) to the problem of verifying software systems. We present specialisation-based techniques for…
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.…
Catamorphisms are functions that are recursively defined on list and trees and, in general, on Algebraic Data Types (ADTs), and are often used to compute suitable abstractions of programs that manipulate ADTs. Examples of catamorphisms…
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…
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…
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…
We address the problem of checking the satisfiability of a set of constrained Horn clauses (CHCs) possibly including more than one query. We propose a transformation technique that takes as input a set of CHCs, including a set of queries,…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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 $\{\varphi\}$…
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…
Many transformation techniques developed for constraint logic programs, also known as constrained Horn clauses (CHCs), have found new useful applications in the field of program verification. In this paper, we work out a nontrivial case…