Model-Checking Erlang – A Comparison between EtomCRL2 and McErlang

  • Qiang Guo
  • John Derrick
  • Clara Benac Earle
  • Lars-Åke Fredlund
Conference paper
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 6303)

Abstract

Model-checking programs is important in the development of a reliable software system. Two approaches might be applied to model-check a system at a source code level. One is to directly apply model-checking algorithm to the programming language; the other to abstract the program source codes into a formal specification, upon which some standard model-checkers can be used to verify system’s properties. Both methods have recently been investigated for model-checking the functional programming language Erlang. Correspondingly, two Erlang model-checkers McErlang and Etomcrl2 are developed. This paper evaluates the two model-checkers by applying them to verify a a distributed and concurrent example - telecoms implemented in Erlang/OTP. A number of system’s key properties are model-checked with both tool-sets. Advantages and disadvantages upon the uses of Etomcrl2 and McErlang are compared and summarized. Through such a case study, we intend to evaluate the two model-checkers on their effectiveness when verifying distributed and concurrent systems, and propose suggestions for their future work.

Keywords

Erlang Model Checking Program Source Code Etomcrl2 McErlang 

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  • Qiang Guo
    • 1
  • John Derrick
    • 1
  • Clara Benac Earle
    • 2
  • Lars-Åke Fredlund
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Computer ScienceThe University of SheffieldPortobelloUK
  2. 2.Facultad de InformáticaUniversidad Politécnica de MadridMadridSpain

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