research-article

Toward a verified relational database management system

Authors:

Gregory Malecha,

Greg Morrisett,

Avraham Shinnar,

Ryan WisneskyAuthors Info & Claims

POPL '10: Proceedings of the 37th annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages

Pages 237 - 248

https://doi.org/10.1145/1706299.1706329

Published: 17 January 2010 Publication History

Abstract

We report on our experience implementing a lightweight, fully verified relational database management system (RDBMS). The functional specification of RDBMS behavior, RDBMS implementation, and proof that the implementation meets the specification are all written and verified in Coq. Our contributions include: (1) a complete specification of the relational algebra in Coq; (2) an efficient realization of that model (B+ trees) implemented with the Ynot extension to Coq; and (3) a set of simple query optimizations proven to respect both semantics and run-time cost. In addition to describing the design and implementation of these artifacts, we highlight the challenges we encountered formalizing them, including the choice of representation for finite relations of typed tuples and the challenges of reasoning about data structures with complex sharing. Our experience shows that though many challenges remain, building fully-verified systems software in Coq is within reach.

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Cited By

Barrière A(2025)Formal Verification of Just-in-Time CompilationundefinedOnline publication date: 28-Jan-2025
Clark JDonaldson AWickerson JRigger M(2024)Validating Database System Isolation Level Implementations with Version Certificate RecoveryProceedings of the Nineteenth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/3627703.3650080(754-768)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
Benzaken VContejean ÉHachmaoui MKeller CMandel LShinnar ASiméon J(2022)Translating canonical SQL to imperative code in CoqProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/35273276:OOPSLA1(1-27)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
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cover image ACM Conferences

POPL '10: Proceedings of the 37th annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages

January 2010

520 pages

ISBN:9781605584799

DOI:10.1145/1706299

General Chair:
Manuel Hermenegildo
IMDEA-Software and T.U. of Madrid, Spain
,
Program Chair:
Jens Palsberg
UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 45, Issue 1
POPL '10
January 2010
500 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1707801
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2010 ACM.

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Published: 17 January 2010

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Cited By

Barrière A(2025)Formal Verification of Just-in-Time CompilationundefinedOnline publication date: 28-Jan-2025
Clark JDonaldson AWickerson JRigger M(2024)Validating Database System Isolation Level Implementations with Version Certificate RecoveryProceedings of the Nineteenth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/3627703.3650080(754-768)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
Benzaken VContejean ÉHachmaoui MKeller CMandel LShinnar ASiméon J(2022)Translating canonical SQL to imperative code in CoqProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/35273276:OOPSLA1(1-27)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
Pardalos MHerklotz YWickerson J(2022)Resource Sharing for Verified High-Level Synthesis2022 IEEE 30th Annual International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM)10.1109/FCCM53951.2022.9786208(1-6)Online publication date: 15-May-2022
Mündler NNipkow T(2022)A Verified Implementation of B$$^+$$-Trees in Isabelle/HOLTheoretical Aspects of Computing – ICTAC 202210.1007/978-3-031-17715-6_21(324-341)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2022
Benzaken VCohen-Boulakia SContejean ÉKeller CZucchini RHriţcu CPopescu A(2021)A Coq formalization of data provenanceProceedings of the 10th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Certified Programs and Proofs10.1145/3437992.3439920(152-162)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2021
Sanchez-Stern AAlhessi YSaul LLerner SSen KNaik M(2020)Generating correctness proofs with neural networksProceedings of the 4th ACM SIGPLAN International Workshop on Machine Learning and Programming Languages10.1145/3394450.3397466(1-10)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2020
Krishna SPatel NShasha DWies TDonaldson ATorlak E(2020)Verifying concurrent search structure templatesProceedings of the 41st ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3385412.3386029(181-196)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2020
Spasić MJaničić M(2020)Verification supported refactoring of embedded sqlSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-020-09517-yOnline publication date: 18-Jun-2020
Nipkow TEberl MHaslbeck M(2020)Verified Textbook AlgorithmsAutomated Technology for Verification and Analysis10.1007/978-3-030-59152-6_2(25-53)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2020
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