Abstract
The research community working on formal software verification has historically evolved into two main camps, grouped around two verification methods that are typically referred to as Deductive Verification and Model Checking. In this paper, we present an approach that applies deductive verification to formally justify abstract models for model checking in the TLA framework. We present a proof-of-concept tool chain for C programs, based on Frama-C for deductive verification and \(\text{ TLA}^+\) for model checking. As a theoretical foundation, we summarise a previously developed abstract contract theory as a framework for combining these two methods. Since the contract theory adheres to the principles of contract based design, this justifies the use of the approach in a real-world system design setting. We evaluate our approach on two case studies: a simple C program simulating opening and closing of files, as well as a C program based on real software from the automotive industry.
This work has been funded by the FFI Programme of the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) as the AVerT2 project 2021-02519.
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Amilon, J., Lidström, C., Gurov, D. (2022). Deductive Verification Based Abstraction for Software Model Checking. In: Margaria, T., Steffen, B. (eds) Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation. Verification Principles. ISoLA 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13701. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19849-6_2
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