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Formally Verifiable Generated ASN.1/ACN Encoders and Decoders: A Case Study

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Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation (VMCAI 2025)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 15530))

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Abstract

We propose a verified executable Scala backend for ASN1SCC, a compiler for ASN.1/ACN. ASN.1 is a language for describing data structures widely employed in ground and space telecommunications. ACN can be used along ASN.1 to describe complex binary formats and legacy protocols. To avoid error-prone and time-consuming manual writing of serializers, we show how to port an ASN.1/ACN code generator to generate Scala code. We then enhance the generator to emit not only the executable code but also strong enough preconditions, postconditions, and lemmas for inductive proofs. This allowed us to verify the resulting generated annotated code using Stainless, a program verifier for Scala. The properties we prove include the absence of runtime errors, such as out-of-bound accesses or divisions by zero. For the base library, we also prove the invertibility of the decoding and encoding functions, showing that decoding yields the encoded value back. Furthermore, our system automatically inserts invertibility proofs for arbitrary records in the generated code, proving over 300’000 verification conditions. We establish key steps towards such proofs for sums and arrays as well.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/epfl-lara/stainless.

  2. 2.

    https://github.com/epfl-lara/inox.

  3. 3.

    https://github.com/maxime-esa/asn1scc/issues/287.

  4. 4.

    https://github.com/maxime-esa/asn1scc/issues/283.

  5. 5.

    https://github.com/maxime-esa/asn1scc/issues/289.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the European Space Agency Open Space Innovation Platform, 4000140196/22/NL/GLC/ov, New Concepts for Onboard Software Development. We thank Maxime Perrotin for overseeing the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EPFL IC LARA, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Mario Bucev, Samuel Chassot & Viktor Kunčak

  2. Ateleris GmbH, Brugg, Switzerland

    Simon Felix & Filip Schramka

Authors
  1. Mario Bucev
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  2. Samuel Chassot
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  3. Simon Felix
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  4. Filip Schramka
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  5. Viktor Kunčak
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simon Felix .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Krishna Shankaranarayanan

  2. University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Sriram Sankaranarayanan

  3. University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Ashutosh Trivedi

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Bucev, M., Chassot, S., Felix, S., Schramka, F., Kunčak, V. (2025). Formally Verifiable Generated ASN.1/ACN Encoders and Decoders: A Case Study. In: Shankaranarayanan, K., Sankaranarayanan, S., Trivedi, A. (eds) Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation. VMCAI 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15530. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-82703-7_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-82703-7_9

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