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Verification Condition Generation Via Theorem Proving

  • Conference paper
Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning (LPAR 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4246))

Abstract

We present a method to convert (i) an operational semantics for a given machine language, and (ii) an off-the-shelf theorem prover, into a high assurance verification condition generator (VCG). Given a program annotated with assertions at cutpoints, we show how to use the theorem prover directly on the operational semantics to generate verification conditions analogous to those produced by a custom-built VCG. Thus no separate VCG is necessary, and the theorem prover can be employed both to generate and to discharge the verification conditions. The method handles both partial and total correctness. It is also compositional in that the correctness of a subroutine needs to be proved once, rather than at each call site. The method has been used to verify several machine-level programs using the ACL2 theorem prover.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Galois Connections Inc., Beaverton, OR, 97005

    John Matthews

  2. Dept. of Computer Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712

    J. Strother Moore & Sandip Ray

  3. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332

    Daron Vroon

Authors
  1. John Matthews
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  2. J. Strother Moore
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  3. Sandip Ray
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  4. Daron Vroon
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. LIX (CNRS, UMR 7161), École Polytechnique, 91128, Palaiseau, France

    Miki Hermann

  2. University of Manchester, UK

    Andrei Voronkov

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Matthews, J., Moore, J.S., Ray, S., Vroon, D. (2006). Verification Condition Generation Via Theorem Proving. In: Hermann, M., Voronkov, A. (eds) Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning. LPAR 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4246. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11916277_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11916277_25

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-48281-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48282-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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