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Lazy Slicing for State-Space Exploration

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Abstract

CEGAR (Counterexample-guided abstraction refinement)-based slicing is one of the most important techniques in reducing the state space in model checking. However, CEGAR-based slicing repeatedly explores the state space handled previously in case a spurious counterexample is found. Inspired by lazy abstraction, we introduce the concept of lazy slicing which eliminates this repeated computation. Lazy slicing is done on-the-fly, and only up to the precision necessary to rule out spurious counterexamples. It identifies a spurious counterexample by concretizing a path fragment other than the full path, which reduces the cost of spurious counterexample decision significantly. Besides, we present an improved over-approximate slicing method to build a more precise slice model. We also provide the proof of the correctness and the termination of lazy slicing, and implement a prototype model checker to verify safety property. Experimental results show that lazy slicing scales to larger systems than CEGAR-based slicing methods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001, China

    Shao-Bin Huang (Senior Member, CCF), Hong-Tao Huang, Zhi-Yuan Chen, Tian-Yang Lv (Member, CCF) & Tao Zhang

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  1. Shao-Bin Huang
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  2. Hong-Tao Huang
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  3. Zhi-Yuan Chen
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  4. Tian-Yang Lv
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  5. Tao Zhang
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Correspondence to Shao-Bin Huang.

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60873038, the National Key Technology Research and Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China under Grant Nos. 2009BAH42B02 and 2012BAH08B02.

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Huang, SB., Huang, HT., Chen, ZY. et al. Lazy Slicing for State-Space Exploration. J. Comput. Sci. Technol. 27, 872–890 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-012-1271-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-012-1271-7

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