Compositional verification of sequential programs with procedures

Abstract. We present an algorithm to extract control-flow graphs from Java bytecode, considering exceptional flows. We then establish its correctness: the behavior of the extracted graphs is shown to be a sound over-approximation of the behavior of the original programs. Thus, any temporal safety property that holds for the extracted control-flow graph also holds for the original program. This makes the extracted graphs suitable for performing various static analyses, in particular model checking. The extraction proceeds in two phases. First, we translate Java bytecode into BIR, a stack-less intermediate representation. The BIR transformation is developed as a module of Sawja, a novel static analysis framework for Java bytecode. Besides Sawja's efficiency, the resulting intermediate representation is more compact than the original bytecode and provides an explicit representation of exceptions. These features make BIR a natural starting point for sound control-flow graph extraction. Next, we formally define the transformation from BIR to control-flow graphs, which (among other features) considers the propagation of uncaught exceptions within method calls. We prove the correctness of the two-phase extraction by suitably combining the properties of the two transformations with those of an idealized control-flow graph extraction algorithm, whose correctness has been proved directly. The control-flow graph extraction algorithm is implemented in the ConFlEx tool. A number of test-cases show the efficiency and the utility of the implementation.

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“…We then reuse an existing result from Gurov et al [10,Th. 36] that structural simulation implies behavioral simulation.…”

Section: Correctness Of Cfg Extractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, control-flow graphs (CFGs) are a widely used abstraction, where and use a previous result (see [10,Th. 36]) to infer behavioral simulation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound Control-Flow Graph Extraction for Java Programs with Exceptions

Amighi

Gomes

Gurov

et al. 2012

Software Engineering and Formal Methods

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“…[19]). In previous work (see [11] for an overview), we showed how this logic can be used for the specification and compositional verification of safety properties, both on the structural and on the behavioural level, and provided tool support and case studies. In particular, we derived an algorithmic solution to problem (1) stated above (see [11, p. 855]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In earlier work, we defined a maximal model construction for the logic considered here, and adapted it to the construction of maximal program structures from structural properties [11]. The combination of this construction with the property translation Π presented here provides a solution to the problem of computing maximal program structures from behavioural properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This allows several problems to be addressed. First, as Section 4 shows, it can be exploited to extend the compositional verification technique of [11], where local assumptions are required to be structural, to local behavioural properties. Second, we obtain a solution to the realisation problem of synthesising (possibly recursive) program structures from temporal specifications of the permitted method call sequences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reducing Behavioural to Structural Properties of Programs with Procedures

Gurov

Huisman

2008

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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There is an intimate link between program structure and behaviour. Exploiting this link to phrase program correctness problems in terms of the structural properties of a program graph rather than in terms of its unfoldings is a useful strategy for making analyses more tractable. The present paper presents a characterisation of behavioural program properties through sets of structural properties by means of a translation. The characterisation is given in the context of a program model based on control flow graphs of sequential programs with procedures, and properties expressed in a fragment of the modal µ-calculus with boxes and greatest fixed-points only. The property translation is based on a tableau construction that conceptually amounts to symbolic execution of the behavioural formula, collecting structural constraints along the way. By keeping track of the subformulae that have been examined, recursion in the structural constraints can be identified and captured by fixed-point formulae. The tableau construction terminates, and the characterisation is exact, i.e. the translation is sound and complete. A prototype implementation has been developed. We discuss several applications of the characterisation, in particular sound and complete compositional verification for behavioural properties based on maximal models.

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Algorithmic Verification of Procedural Programs in the Presence of Code Variability

Soleimanifard

Gurov

2015

Formal Aspects of Component Software

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We present a generic framework for verifying temporal safety properties of procedural programs that are dynamically or statically configured by replacing, adapting, or adding new components. To deal with such a variability of a program, we require programmers to provide local specifications for its variable components, and verify the global properties by replacing these specifications with maximal models. Our framework is a generalization of a previously developed framework that abstracts from all program data. In this work, we capture program data and thus significantly increase the range of properties that can be verified. Our framework is generic by being parametric on the set of observed program events and their semantics. We separate program structure from the behavior it induces to facilitate independent component specification and verification. To exemplify its use, we instantiate our framework to develop a compositional verification technique for programs written in a procedural language with pointers as the only datatype. We also adapt our previously developed toolset to provide support for compositional verification of such programs.

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Compositional verification of sequential programs with procedures

Cited by 20 publications

References 14 publications

Sound Control-Flow Graph Extraction for Java Programs with Exceptions

Sound Control-Flow Graph Extraction for Java Programs with Exceptions

Reducing Behavioural to Structural Properties of Programs with Procedures

Algorithmic Verification of Procedural Programs in the Presence of Code Variability

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