Algorithms for Interface Synthesis

Abstract. A temporal interface for a software component is a finite automaton that specifies the legal sequences of calls to functions that are provided by the component. We compare and evaluate three different algorithms for automatically extracting temporal interfaces from program code: (1) a game algorithm that computes the interface as a representation of the most general environment strategy to avoid a safety violation; (2) a learning algorithm that repeatedly queries the program to construct the minimal interface automaton; and (3) a CEGAR algoat iteratively refines an abstract interface hypothesis by adding relevant program variables. For comparison purposes, we present and implement the three algorithms in a unifying formal setting. While the three algorithms compute the same output and have similar worst-case complexities, their actual running times may differ considerably for a given input program. On the theoretical side, we provide for each of the three algorithms a fa...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CAV
• Authors: Dirk Beyer, Thomas A. Henzinger, Vasu Singh
• Keywords: Algorithms, CAV 2007, Formal Methods, Minimal Interface Automaton, Temporal Interfaces