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Program Checking with Less Hassle

  • Conference paper
Verified Software: Theories, Tools, Experiments (VSTTE 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 8164))

Abstract

The simple and often imprecise specifications that programmers may write are a significant limit to a wider application of rigorous program verification techniques. Part of the reason why non-specialists find writing good specification hard is that, when verification fails, they receive little guidance as to what the causes might be, such as implementation errors or inaccurate specifications. To address these limitations, this paper presents two-step verification, a technique that combines implicit specifications, inlining, and loop unrolling to provide improved user feedback when verification fails. Two-step verification performs two independent verification attempts for each program element: one using standard modular reasoning, and another one after inlining and unrolling; comparing the outcomes of the two steps suggests which elements should be improved. Two-step verification is implemented in AutoProof, our static verifier for Eiffel programs integrated in EVE (the Eiffel Verification Environment) and available online.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

    Julian Tschannen, Carlo A. Furia, Martin Nordio & Bertrand Meyer

  2. ITMO National Research University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Bertrand Meyer

Authors
  1. Julian Tschannen
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  2. Carlo A. Furia
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  3. Martin Nordio
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  4. Bertrand Meyer
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. 107 Hewett Road, Wyncote, 19095, PA, USA

    Ernie Cohen

  2. Technische Universität, München, Germany

    Andrey Rybalchenko

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Tschannen, J., Furia, C.A., Nordio, M., Meyer, B. (2014). Program Checking with Less Hassle. In: Cohen, E., Rybalchenko, A. (eds) Verified Software: Theories, Tools, Experiments. VSTTE 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8164. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54108-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54108-7_8

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-54107-0

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