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Counterexamples Revisited: Principles, Algorithms, Applications

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Verification: Theory and Practice

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2772))

Abstract

Algorithmic counterexample generation is a central feature of model checking which sets the method apart from other approaches such as theorem proving. The practical value of counterexamples to the verification engineer is evident, and for many years, counterexample generation algorithms have been employed in model checking systems, even though they had not been subject to an adequate fundamental investigation. Recent advances in model checking technology such as counterexample-guided abstraction refinement have put strong emphasis on counterexamples, and have lead to renewed interest both in fundamental and pragmatic aspects of counterexample generation. In this paper, we survey several key contributions to the subject including symbolic algorithms, results about the graph-theoretic structure of counterexamples, and applications to automated abstraction as well as software verification.

Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. Karl R. Popper

This research was sponsored by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) under contract no. 99-TJ-684, the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant no. CCR-9803774, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) under contract no. N00014-01-1-0796, and by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Army Research Office (ARO) under contract no. DAAD19-01-1-0485, the General Motors Collaborative Research Lab at CMU, the Austrian Science Fund Project N Z29-N04, and the EU Research and Training Network GAMES. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of SRC, NSF, ONR, NRL, DOD, ARO, or the U.S. government.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

    Edmund Clarke

  2. Institut für Informationsysteme, Technische Universität, Wien, Austria

    Helmut Veith

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  1. Edmund Clarke
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  2. Helmut Veith
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Nachum Dershowitz

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Clarke, E., Veith, H. (2003). Counterexamples Revisited: Principles, Algorithms, Applications. In: Dershowitz, N. (eds) Verification: Theory and Practice. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2772. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-39910-0_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-39910-0_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-21002-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39910-0

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