We propose abstract regular model checking as a new generic technique for verification of parametric and infinite-state systems. The technique combines the two approaches of regular model checking and verification by abstraction. We propose a general framework of the method as well as several concrete ways of abstracting automata or transducers, which we use for modelling systems and encoding sets of their configurations as usual in regular model checking. The abstraction is based on collapsing states of automata (or transducers) and its precision is being incrementally adjusted by analysing spurious counterexamples. We illustrate the technique on verification of a wide range of systems including a novel application of automata-based techniques to an example of systems with dynamic linked data structures.Abstract Regular Model Checking 373

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We address the problem of verifying programs manipulating one-selector linked data structures. We propose and study in detail an application of counter automata as an accurate abstract model for this problem. We let control states of the counter automata correspond to abstract heap graphs where list segments without sharing are collapsed, and use counters to keep track of the number of elements in these segments. As a significant theoretical result, we show that the obtained counter automata are bisimilar to the original programs. Moreover, from a practical point of view, our translation allows one to apply efficient automatic analysis techniques and tools developed for counter automata (integer programs) in order to verify both safety as well as termination of list-manipulating programs. As another This work is a full and revised version of the extended abstract [10] published in Proceedings of CAV'06. Form Methods Syst Des (2011) 38: 158-192 159 theoretical contribution, we prove that if the control of the generated counter automata does not contain nested loops (i.e., these automata are flat), both safety and termination are decidable for the original programs. Subsequently, we generalise our counter-automata-based model to keep track of ordering properties over lists storing ordered data. Finally, we show effectiveness of our approach by verifying automatically safety as well as termination of several sorting programs.

Abstract. We consider the verification of non-recursive C programs manipulating dynamic linked data structures with possibly several next pointer selectors and with finite domain non-pointer data. We aim at checking basic memory consistency properties (no null pointer assignments, etc.) and shape invariants whose violation can be expressed in an existential fragment of a first order logic over graphs. We formalise this fragment as a logic for specifying bad memory patterns whose formulae may be translated to testers written in C that can be attached to the program, thus reducing the verification problem considered to checking reachability of an error control line. We encode configurations of programs, which are essentially shape graphs, in an original way as extended tree automata and we represent program statements by tree transducers. Then, we use the abstract regular tree model checking framework for a fully automated verification. The method has been implemented and successfully applied on several case studies.

Abstract. In [13], Yen defines a class of formulas for paths in Petri nets and claims that its satisfiability problem is EXPSPACE-complete. In this paper, we show that in fact the satisfiability problem for this class of formulas is as hard as the reachability problem for Petri nets. Moreover, we salvage almost all of Yen's results by defining a fragment of this class of formulas for which the satisfiability problem is EXPSPACE-complete by adapting his proof.

We consider verification of programs manipulating dynamic linked data structures such as various forms of singly and doubly-linked lists or trees. We consider important properties for this kind of systems like no null-pointer dereferences, absence of garbage, shape properties, etc. We develop a verification method based on a novel use of tree automata to represent heap configurations. A heap is split into several "separated" parts such that each of them can be represented by a tree automaton. The automata can refer to each other allowing the different parts of the heaps to mutually refer to their boundaries. Moreover, we allow for a hierarchical representation of heaps by allowing alphabets of the tree automata to contain other, nested tree automata. Program instructions can be easily encoded as operations on our representation structure. This allows verification of programs based on symbolic state-space exploration together with refinable abstraction within the so-called abstract regular tree model checking. A motivation for the approach is to combine advantages of automata-based approaches (higher generality and flexibility of the abstraction) with some advantages of separation-logic-based approaches (efficiency). We have implemented our approach and tested it successfully on multiple non-trivial case studies.

Regular model checking is a method for verifying infinite-state systems based on coding their configurations as words over a finite alphabet, sets of configurations as finite automata, and transitions as finite transducers. We introduce a new general approach to regular model checking based on inference of regular languages. The method builds upon the observation that for infinite-state systems whose behaviour can be modelled using length-preserving transducers, there is a finite computation for obtaining all reachable configurations up to a certain length n. These configurations are a (positive) sample of the reachable configurations of the given system, whereas all other words up to length n are a negative sample. Then, methods of inference of regular languages can be used to generalize the sample to the full reachability set (or an overapproximation of it). We have implemented our method in a prototype tool which shows that our approach is competitive on a number of concrete examples. Furthermore, in contrast to all other existing regular model checking methods, termination is guaranteed in general for all systems with regular sets of reachable configurations. The method can be applied in a similar way to dealing with reachability relations instead of reachability sets too

Regular (tree) model checking (RMC) is a promising generic method for formal verification of infinite-state systems. It encodes configurations of systems as words or trees over a suitable alphabet, possibly infinite sets of configurations as finite word or tree automata, and operations of the systems being examined as finite word or tree transducers. The reachability set is then computed by a repeated application of the transducers on the automata representing the currently known set of reachable configurations. In order to facilitate termination of RMC, various acceleration schemas have been proposed. One of them is a combination of RMC with the abstract-check-refine paradigm yielding the so-called abstract regular model checking (ARMC). ARMC has originally been proposed for word automata and transducers only and thus for dealing with systems with linear (or easily linearisable) structure. In this paper, we propose a generalisation of ARMC to the case of dealing with trees which arise naturally in a lot of modelling and verification contexts. In particular, we first propose abstractions of tree automata based on collapsing their states having an equal language of trees up to some bounded height. Then, we propose an abstraction based on collapsing states having a non-empty intersection (and thus "satisfying") the same bottom-up tree "predicate" languages. Finally, we show on several examples that the methods we propose give us very encouraging verification results.