Software Model Checking

Abstract

In thes notes we will review the automata-theoretic verification method and propositional linear temporal logic, with specific emphasis on their potential application to distributed software verification. An important issue in software verification is the establishment of a formal relation between the concrete, implementation-level, software application and the abstract, derived, automata-model that is the subject of the actual verification. In principle one can either attempt to derive an implementation from a verified abstract model, using refinement techniques, or one can attempt to derive a verification model from an implementation, using systematic abstraction techniques. The former method has long been advocated, but has not received much attention in industrial practice. The latter method, deriving abstract models from concrete implementations guided by explicitly stated correctness requirements, has recently begun to show considerable promise. We will discuss it in detail.

Checking Event-Based Specifications in Java Systems

“…More recently and more related to our work, there has been a significant body of work on software model checking [24].…”

“…For example, the original Java Pathfinder [19,20] translated Java programs into Promela, the input language for the SPIN model checker [23,24], while MAGIC starts by analyzing C programs to build a control flow graph [7]. Java Pathfinder 2 [5,30,36] instead starts from Java byte codes, essentially a binary representation, while the Bandera system [9,10,13] uses both the source and the byte code representation.…”

VIP: A Visual Editor and Compiler for v-Promela

“…It has been shown that state-based modeling and automatic model checking is an effective tool for answering these questions for concurrent reactive systems. Recent advances in model checking research have made verification based on state space exploration more feasible for realistic software problems [6,7]. However, the introduction of formal methods in the software engineering process is…”