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Symbolic Execution and Deductive Verification Approaches to VerifyThis 2017 Challenges

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Book cover Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation. Verification (ISoLA 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 11245))

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Abstract

We present solutions to the VerifyThis 2017 program verification challenges using the symbolic execution tool CIVL. Comparing these to existing solutions using deductive verification tools such as Why3 and KeY, we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches. The issues include scalability; the ability to handle challenging programming language constructs, such as expressions with side-effects, pointers, and concurrency; the ability to specify complex properties; and usability and automation. We conclude with a presentation of a new CIVL feature that attempts to bridge the gap between the two approaches by allowing a user to incorporate loop invariants incrementally into a symbolic execution framework.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Download from http://vsl.cis.udel.edu/lib/sw/civl/1.17.1. The SHA1 checksum for is 65006c21fd77cc5ed6791a9ed33283b95965121d.

  2. 2.

    http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8/jdk8/jdk/file/687fd7c7986d/src/share/classes/java/util/DualPivotQuicksort.java.

  3. 3.

    https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/chair-program-method/pm/documents/Verify%20This/Solutions%202017/program.c.

  4. 4.

    ANSI/ISO C Specification Language. http://frama-c.com/acsl.html.

  5. 5.

    http://toccata.lri.fr/gallery/verifythis_2017_pair_insertion_sort.en.html.

  6. 6.

    https://www.key-project.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/PairInsertionSort.java.

  7. 7.

    Challenge 2 was replaced by another challenge shortly before the competition began, hence the gap in the numbering.

  8. 8.

    A Message-Passing Interface Standard, Version 3.1. http://www.mpi-forum.org/docs/.

  9. 9.

    http://toccata.lri.fr/gallery/verifythis_2017_odd_even_transposition_sort.en.html.

  10. 10.

    https://github.com/rgrig/treebuffers/blob/master/treebuffer.c.

  11. 11.

    http://toccata.lri.fr/gallery/verifythis_2017_tree_buffer.en.html.

  12. 12.

    https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/chair-program-method/pm/documents/Verify%20This/Solutions%202017/Kirsten_TreeBuffer.java.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Award CCF-1319571, and by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, under Award Number DE-SC0012566. This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Verified Software Laboratory, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 19716, USA

    Ziqing Luo & Stephen F. Siegel

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  1. Ziqing Luo
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  2. Stephen F. Siegel
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Correspondence to Stephen F. Siegel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Tiziana Margaria

  2. TU Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany

    Bernhard Steffen

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Luo, Z., Siegel, S.F. (2018). Symbolic Execution and Deductive Verification Approaches to VerifyThis 2017 Challenges. In: Margaria, T., Steffen, B. (eds) Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation. Verification. ISoLA 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11245. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03421-4_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03421-4_12

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03421-4

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