Quantified Invariants via Syntax-Guided Synthesis

Grigory Fedyukovich, Sumanth Prabhu, Kumar Madhukar, Aarti Gupta

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

39 Scopus citations

Abstract

Programs with arrays are ubiquitous. Automated reasoning about arrays necessitates discovering properties about ranges of elements at certain program points. Such properties are formally specified by universally quantified formulas, which are difficult to find, and difficult to prove inductive. In this paper, we propose an algorithm based on an enumerative search that discovers quantified invariants in stages. First, by exploiting the program syntax, it identifies ranges of elements accessed in each loop. Second, it identifies potentially useful facts about individual elements and generalizes them to hypotheses about entire ranges. Finally, by applying recent advances of SMT solving, the algorithm filters out wrong hypotheses. The combination of properties is often enough to prove that the program meets a safety specification. The algorithm has been implemented in a solver for Constrained Horn Clauses, Freq-Horn, and extended to deal with multiple (possibly nested) loops. We show that FreqHorn advances state-of-the-art on a wide range of public array-handling programs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationComputer Aided Verification - 31st International Conference, CAV 2019, Proceedings
EditorsIsil Dillig, Serdar Tasiran
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages259-277
Number of pages19
ISBN (Print)9783030255398
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019
Event31st International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV 2019 - New York City, United States
Duration: Jul 15 2019Jul 18 2019

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume11561 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference31st International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew York City
Period7/15/197/18/19

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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