Configurable Software Verification: Concretizing the Convergence of Model Checking and Program Analysis

In automatic software verification, we have observed a theoretical convergence of model checking and program analysis. In practice, however, model checkers are still mostly concerned with precision, e.g., the removal of spurious counterexamples; for this purpose they build and refine reachability trees. Lattice-based program analyzers, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with efficiency. We designed an algorithm and built a tool that can be configured to perform not only a purely tree-based or a purely lattice-based analysis, but offers many intermediate settings that have not been evaluated before. The algorithm take one or more abstract interpreters, such as a predicate abstraction and a shape analysis, and configure their execution and interaction using several parameters. Our experiments show that such customization may lead to dramatic improvements in the precision-efficiency spectrum.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CAV
• Authors: Dirk Beyer, Thomas A. Henzinger, Grégory Théoduloz
• Keywords: Automatic Software Verification, CAV 2007, Hardware, Lattice-based Program Analyzers, Spurious Counterexamples