Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: The use of temporal logics has long been recognised as a fundamental approach to the formal specification and verification of reactive systems. In this paper, we take on the problem of automatically verifying a temporal property, given by a CTL formula, for a given (possibly infinite-state) program. We propose a method based on encoding the problem as a set of Horn constraints. The method takes a program, modeled as a transition system, and a property given by a CTL formula as input. It first generates a set of forall-exists quantified Horn constraints and well-foundedness constraints by exploiting the syntactic structure of the CTL formula. Then, the generated set of constraints are solved by applying an off-the-shelf Horn constraints solving engine. The program is said to satisfy the property if and only if the generated set of constraints has a solution. We demonstrate the practical promises of the method by applying it on a set of challenging examples. Although our method is based on a generic Horn constraint solving engine, it is able to outperform state-of-art methods specialised for CTL verification.
DOI: 10.4204/eptcs.219.1
Authors: Tewodros A. Beyene, Corneliu Popeea, Andrey Rybalchenko
Institutions: Fortiss, Microsoft Research (United Kingdom)
Language: English
Subfield: Computational Theory and Mathematics
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2461707470