Abstract
We present a symbolic reachability analysis approach for B that can provide a significant speedup over traditional explicit state model checking. The symbolic analysis is implemented by linking ProB to LTSmin, a high-performance language independent model checker. The link is achieved via LTSmin ’s Pins interface, allowing ProB to benefit from LTSmin ’s analysis algorithms, while only writing a few hundred lines of glue-code, along with a bridge between ProB and C using ØMQ. ProB supports model checking of several formal specification languages such as B, Event-B, Z and \({\textsc {Tla}}^{+}\). Our experiments are based on a wide variety of B-Method and Event-B models to demonstrate the efficiency of the new link. Among the tested categories are state space generation and deadlock detection; but action detection and invariant checking are also feasible in principle. In many cases we observe speedups of several orders of magnitude. We also compare the results with other approaches for improving model checking, such as partial order reduction or symmetry reduction. We thus provide a new scalable, symbolic analysis algorithm for the B-Method and Event-B, along with a platform to integrate other model checking improvements via LTSmin in the future.
J. Meijer—Supported by STW SUMBAT grant: 13859.
J. van de Pol—Supported by the 3TU.BSR project.
J. Whitefield—Partly supported by EPSRC grant: EP/M506655/1.
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Notes
- 1.
One subtle issue is that LTSmin actually only supports a single initial state; this is solved by introducing the artificial root state linked to the initial states proper. We ignore this technical issue in the paper.
- 2.
We refrain from giving their formal definitions; they can be found in [23].
- 3.
More detailed descriptions can be found in [5].
- 4.
Reproduction notes at https://github.com/utwente-fmt/ProB-LTSmin-iFM16.
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Bendisposto, J. et al. (2016). Symbolic Reachability Analysis of B Through ProB and LTSmin . In: Ábrahám, E., Huisman, M. (eds) Integrated Formal Methods. IFM 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9681. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33693-0_18
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