What are the main reasons why BDD-based model checkers are often used in practice?

In particular, the BDD-based model checkers are often used in practice, to try and complete successful proofs of correctness, since this guarantees correctness on the original program as well.

What is the way to check if a sequence of statements is feasible?

In order to check if a sequence of statements in the C program is (in)feasible, one can use either a theorem prover or a SAT-solver.

What techniques are used to avoid exploring all interleavings of concurrent processes?

They utilize many additional techniques such as state hashing for compaction of state representations, and partial order methods to avoid exploring all interleavings of concurrent processes.

How do you control the decision heuristics in a SAT solver?

The two most popular are: by use of additional highlevel constraints on the model description, and by controlling model checker parameters such as decision heuristics in a SAT solver.

How can the authors reduce the number of latches for each variable?

In order to reduce the number of latches and the associated logic for each C variable, the authors can use static analysis to bound the range of values of each variable (see Section VI-A).

Why is the abstraction computation no longer a bottleneck?

Two observations can be made from the ”Localize” results: 1) Due to the localization of predicates, the abstraction computation is no longer a bottleneck.

What is the importance of the control flow in a SAT solver?

For verification models extracted from CFGs, as described in the previous section, the control flow is intuitively more important than the data flow.

What techniques can be used to reduce the number of control variables?

Examples of such techniques include use of range analysis for statically bounding the values of data variables (Section VI-A); and use of register sharing techniques to reduce the number of control variables (Section V-B).

How many predicates are needed to verify the properties of the TCAS system?

Even though the preprocessed program has only 1652 lines of code, the number of predicates needed to verify the properties is non-trivial for both F-SOFT and BLAST [32].

Open AccessProceedings Article10.1109/ICCD.2005.77

Model checking C programs using F-Soft

Franjo Ivancic, +6 more

- 02 Oct 2005

- pp 297-308

120

TL;DR: This paper provides a brief tutorial on model checking of C programs, and provides illustrative details of a verification platform called F-Soft, which provides a range of abstractions for modeling software, and uses customized SAT-based and BDD-based model checking techniques targeted for software.

Abstract: With the success of formal verification techniques like equivalence checking and model checking for hardware designs, there has been growing interest in applying such techniques for formal analysis and automatic verification of software programs. This paper provides a brief tutorial on model checking of C programs. The essential approach is to model the semantics of C programs in the form of finite state systems by using suitable abstractions. The use of abstractions is key, both for modeling programs as finite state systems and for reducing the model sizes in order to manage verification complexity. We provide illustrative details of a verification platform called F-Soft, which provides a range of abstractions for modeling software, and uses customized SAT-based and BDD-based model checking techniques targeted for software.

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1. What have the authors contributed in "Model checking c programs using f-soft" ?

This paper provides a brief tutorial on model checking of C programs.. The authors provide illustrative details of a verification platform called F-SOFT, which provides a range of abstractions for modeling software, and uses customized SAT-based and BDD-based model checking techniques targeted for software.

2. What is the advantage of using unbounded verification methods?

the finite state models extracted from C programs, with or without use of predicate abstraction, allow use of unbounded verification methods also.

3. What is the definition of model checking?

Model checking is a popular technique for checking correctness properties, in which the design to be verified is represented as a finite state transition system, and the property is specified as a temporal logic formula.

4. What is the key approach to model checking of C programs?

The essential approach is to model the semantics of C programs in the form of finite state systems by using suitable abstractions.

Fig. 3. Predicate abstraction computation using two predicates b1 and b2

TABLE II RESULTS FOR: 1) LOCALIZATION, ABSTRACTION WITHOUT REGISTER SHARING (”LOCALIZE”) . 2) LOCALIZATION, ABSTRACTION WITH REGISTER SHARING, DEDICATED STATE VARIABLES (”COMBINED”). A ”-” INDICATES THAT THE PROPERTY HOLDS. A ”TO” INDICATES A TIMEOUT OF 1HR.

Fig. 7. F-SOFT testbench generator for gdb in emacs

Fig. 8. Cumulative time comparison of BMC heuristics for the PPP example

Fig. 9. Time per depth comparison of BMC heuristics for the PPP example

Citations

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems. Proc. TACAS 2009

Stefan Kowalewski, +1 more

- 01 Jan 2009

TL;DR: This paper presents a meta-modelling framework for modeling and testing the robustness of the modeled systems and some of the techniques used in this framework have been developed and tested in the field.

...read moreread less

1.6K

•Journal Article

Interpolation and SAT-based model checking

Kenneth L. McMillan

- 01 Jan 2003

- Lecture Notes in Computer Science

TL;DR: In benchmark studies using a set of large industrial circuit verification instances, this method is greatly more efficient than BDD-based symbolic model checking, and compares favorably to some recent SAT-based model checking methods on positive instances.

...read moreread less

775

•Book Chapter•10.1007/978-3-540-73370-6_19

ACSAR: software model checking with transfinite refinement

Mohamed Nassim Seghir, +1 more

- 01 Jul 2007

TL;DR: The idea behind ACSAR is to abstract not just states but also the state changes induced by structured program statements, including for- and while-statements, which allows one to shortcut such a “transfinite” sequence of refinement steps.

...read moreread less

654

Keynote Paper A Survey of Automated Techniques for Formal Software Verification

Vijay D'Silva, +2 more

- 01 Jan 2008

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of static analysis with abstract domains, model checking, and bounded model checking techniques for verification of software quality and correctness, highlighting their differences when applied to practical problems.

...read moreread less

303

•Posted Content

Model checking software for microcontrollers

Bastian Schlich, +3 more

- 01 Jan 2006

TL;DR: A new approach to model checking software for microcontrollers, which verifies the assembly code of the software with different formal methods, namely, model checking, static analysis, and abstract interpretation.

...read moreread less

119

...

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References

•Journal Article•10.1109/TC.1986.1676819

Graph-Based Algorithms for Boolean Function Manipulation

Bryant

- 01 Aug 1986

- IEEE Transactions on Computers

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a data structure for representing Boolean functions and an associated set of manipulation algorithms, which have time complexity proportional to the sizes of the graphs being operated on, and hence are quite efficient as long as the graphs do not grow too large.

...read moreread less

9.5K

•Proceedings Article•10.1145/512950.512973

Abstract interpretation: a unified lattice model for static analysis of programs by construction or approximation of fixpoints

Patrick Cousot, +1 more

- 01 Jan 1977

TL;DR: In this paper, the abstract interpretation of programs is used to describe computations in another universe of abstract objects, so that the results of abstract execution give some information on the actual computations.

...read moreread less

7.2K

Journal Article•10.1109/32.588521

The model checker SPIN

Gerard J. Holzmann

- 01 May 1997

TL;DR: An overview of the design and structure of the verifier, its theoretical foundation, and an overview of significant practical applications are given.

...read moreread less

4.3K

Proceedings Article•10.1145/378239.379017

Chaff: engineering an efficient SAT solver

Matthew W. Moskewicz, +4 more

- 22 Jun 2001

TL;DR: The development of a new complete solver, Chaff, is described which achieves significant performance gains through careful engineering of all aspects of the search-especially a particularly efficient implementation of Boolean constraint propagation (BCP) and a novel low overhead decision strategy.

...read moreread less

3.5K

•Book

Symbolic Model Checking

Edmund M. Clarke, +3 more

- 31 Jul 1993

TL;DR: Using symbolic model checking techniques it is possible to verify industrial-size finite state systems and models with more than 10120 states have been verified using special techniques.

...read moreread less

3.4K

...

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Model checking C programs using F-Soft

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AI Agents for this Paper

Most frequently asked questions

1. What have the authors contributed in "Model checking c programs using f-soft" ?

2. What is the advantage of using unbounded verification methods?

3. What is the definition of model checking?

4. What is the key approach to model checking of C programs?

5. What are the main reasons why BDD-based model checkers are often used in practice?

6. What is the way to check if a sequence of statements is feasible?

7. What techniques are used to avoid exploring all interleavings of concurrent processes?

8. How do you control the decision heuristics in a SAT solver?

9. How can the authors reduce the number of latches for each variable?

10. Why is the abstraction computation no longer a bottleneck?

11. What is the importance of the control flow in a SAT solver?

12. What techniques can be used to reduce the number of control variables?

13. How many predicates are needed to verify the properties of the TCAS system?

Figures

Citations

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems. Proc. TACAS 2009

Interpolation and SAT-based model checking

ACSAR: software model checking with transfinite refinement

Keynote Paper A Survey of Automated Techniques for Formal Software Verification

Model checking software for microcontrollers

References

Graph-Based Algorithms for Boolean Function Manipulation

Abstract interpretation: a unified lattice model for static analysis of programs by construction or approximation of fixpoints

The model checker SPIN

Chaff: engineering an efficient SAT solver

Symbolic Model Checking

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