Sound Runtime Assertion Checking for Memory Properties via Program Transformation

Dara Ly (1, 2) , Nikolai Kosmatov (3, 4) , Frédéric Loulergue (2) , Julien Signoles (1)

1 LSL - Laboratoire Sûreté des Logiciels
2 LMV - Langages, Modèles et Vérification
3 Thales Research and Technology [Palaiseau]
4 DILS (CEA, LIST) - Département Ingénierie Logiciels et Systèmes

Runtime Assertion Checking (RAC) for expressive specification languages is a non-trivial verification task, that becomes even more complex for memory-related properties of imperative languages with dynamic memory allocation. It is important to ensure the soundness of RAC verdicts, in particular when RAC reports the absence of failures for execution traces. This paper presents a formalization of a program transformation technique for RAC of memory properties for a representative language with pointers and memory operations, including dynamic allocation and deallocation. The generated program instrumentation relies on an axiomatized observation memory model, which is essential to record and monitor memory-related properties. We prove the soundness of RAC verdicts with regard to the semantics of this language.

Mots clés: runtime assertion checking; memory-related properties; memory model; soundness proof

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Dara Ly, Nikolai Kosmatov, Frédéric Loulergue, Julien Signoles. Sound Runtime Assertion Checking for Memory Properties via Program Transformation. Formal Aspects of Computing, 2024, 36 (1), pp.46. ⟨10.1145/3605951⟩. ⟨hal-04065774⟩