Abstract
When proving invariance properties of programs, one is faced with two problems. The first problem is related to the necessity of proving tautologies of the considered assertion language, whereas the second manifests itself in the need of finding sufficiently strong invariants. This paper focuses on the second problem and describes techniques for the automatic generation of invariants. The first set of these techniques is applicable to sequential transition systems and allows deriving so-called local invariants, i.e., predicates which are invariant at some control location. The second is applicable on networks of transition systems and allows combining local invariants of the sequential components to obtain local invariants of the global system.
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Bensalem, S., Lakhnech, Y. Automatic Generation of Invariants. Formal Methods in System Design 15, 75–92 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008744030390
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008744030390