Counter-example generation in symbolic abstract model-checking

Gordon Pace (1, 2) , Nicolas Halbwachs (1) , Pascal Raymond (1)

1 VERIMAG - IMAG - VERIMAG
2 SVRG - Semantics & Verification Research Group

The boundaries of model-checking have been extended through the use of abstraction. These techniques are conservative, in the following sense: when the verification succeeds, the verified property is guaranteed to hold; but when it fails, it may result either from the non satisfaction of the property, or from a too rough abstraction. In case of failure, it is, in general, undecidable whether an abstract trace corresponding to a counter-example has any concrete counterparts. For debugging purposes, one usually desires to go further than giving a ldquoyes/nordquo answer (actually, a ldquoyes/donrsquot knowrdquo answer!), and look for such concrete counter-examples. We propose a solution in which we apply standard test-pattern generation technology to search for concrete instances of abstract traces.

Keywords: Model-checking; Abstraction; Concrete counterexample; Test pattern generation

Domains: Embedded Systems; Programming Languages [cs.PL]; Software Engineering [cs.SE]

Gordon Pace, Nicolas Halbwachs, Pascal Raymond. Counter-example generation in symbolic abstract model-checking. International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer, 2004, 5 (2-3), pp.158-164. ⟨10.1007/s10009-003-0127-4⟩. ⟨hal-00199168⟩