On the Use of Underspecified Data-Type Semantics for Type Safety in Low-Level Code
Abstract
In recent projects on operating-system verification, C and C++ data types are often formalized using a semantics that does not fully specify the precise byte encoding of objects. It is well-known that such an underspecified data-type semantics can be used to detect certain kinds of type errors. In general, however, underspecified data-type semantics are unsound: they assign well-defined meaning to programs that have undefined behavior according to the C and C++ language standards. A precise characterization of the type-correctness properties that can be enforced with underspecified data-type semantics is still missing. In this paper, we identify strengths and weaknesses of underspecified data-type semantics for ensuring type safety of low-level systems code. We prove sufficient conditions to detect certain classes of type errors and, finally, identify a trade-off between the complexity of underspecified data-type semantics and their type-checking capabilities.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1211.6190,
title = {On the Use of Underspecified Data-Type Semantics for Type Safety in Low-Level Code},
author = {Hendrik Tews and Marcus Völp and Tjark Weber},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.6190},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
In Proceedings SSV 2012, arXiv:1211.5873