Verifying Temporal Regular Properties of Abstractions of Term Rewriting Systems

The tree automaton completion is an algorithm used for proving safety properties of systems that can be modeled by a term rewriting system. This representation and verification technique works well for proving properties of infinite systems like cryptographic protocols or more recently on Java Bytecode programs. This algorithm computes a tree automaton which represents a (regular) over approximation of the set of reachable terms by rewriting initial terms. This approach is limited by the lack of information about rewriting relation between terms. Actually, terms in relation by rewriting are in the same equivalence class: there are recognized by the same state in the tree automaton. Our objective is to produce an automaton embedding an abstraction of the rewriting relation sufficient to prove temporal properties of the term rewriting system. We propose to extend the algorithm to produce an automaton having more equivalence classes to distinguish a term or a subterm from its successors w.r.t. rewriting. While ground transitions are used to recognize equivalence classes of terms, epsilon-transitions represent the rewriting relation between terms. From the completed automaton, it is possible to automatically build a Kripke structure abstracting the rewriting sequence. States of the Kripke structure are states of the tree automaton and the transition relation is given by the set of epsilon-transitions. States of the Kripke structure are labelled by the set of terms recognized using ground transitions. On this Kripke structure, we define the Regular Linear Temporal Logic (R-LTL) for expressing properties. Such properties can then be checked using standard model checking algorithms. The only difference between LTL and R-LTL is that predicates are replaced by regular sets of acceptable terms

Towards Static Analysis of Functional Programs using Tree Automata Completion

This paper presents the first step of a wider research effort to apply tree automata completion to the static analysis of functional programs. Tree Automata Completion is a family of techniques for computing or approximating the set of terms reachable by a rewriting relation. The completion algorithm we focus on is parameterized by a set E of equations controlling the precision of the approximation and influencing its termination. For completion to be used as a static analysis, the first step is to guarantee its termination. In this work, we thus give a sufficient condition on E and T(F) for completion algorithm to always terminate. In the particular setting of functional programs, this condition can be relaxed into a condition on E and T(C) (terms built on the set of constructors) that is closer to what is done in the field of static analysis, where abstractions are performed on data.Comment: Proceedings of WRLA'14. 201

On the Limits of Second-Order Unification

Second-Order Unification is a problem that naturally arises when applying automated deduction techniques with variables denoting predicates. The problem is undecidable, but a considerable effort has been made in order to find decidable fragments, and understand the deep reasons of its complexity. Two variants of the problem, Bounded Second-Order Unification and Linear Second-Order Unification ¿where the use of bound variables in the instantiations is restricted¿, have been extensively studied in the last two decades. In this paper we summarize some decidability/undecidability/complexity results, trying to focus on those that could be more interesting for a wider audience, and involving less technical details.Peer Reviewe

Matrix Interpretations on Polyhedral Domains

We refine matrix interpretations for proving termination and complexity bounds of term rewrite systems we restricting them to domains that satisfy a system of linear inequalities. Admissibility of such a restriction is shown by certificates whose validity can be expressed as a constraint program. This refinement is orthogonal to other features of matrix interpretations (complexity bounds, dependency pairs), but can be used to improve complexity bounds, and we discuss its relation with the usable rules criterion. We present an implementation and experiments

Certifying Higher-Order Polynomial Interpretations

Higher-order rewriting is a framework in which one can write higher-order programs and study their properties. One such property is termination: the situation that for all inputs, the program eventually halts its execution and produces an output. Several tools have been developed to check whether higher-order rewriting systems are terminating. However, developing such tools is difficult and can be error-prone. In this paper, we present a way of certifying termination proofs of higher-order term rewriting systems. We formalize a specific method that is used to prove termination, namely the polynomial interpretation method. In addition, we give a program that processes proof traces containing a high-level description of a termination proof into a formal Coq proof script that can be checked by Coq. We demonstrate the usability of this approach by certifying higher-order polynomial interpretation proofs produced by Wanda, a termination analysis tool for higher-order rewriting

Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research: Annual Report 2001

Summary of the scientific activities of the institute in 2001 including selected highlight reports, short research contributions and an extended statistics overview

Confluence of nearly orthogonal infinitary term rewriting systems

We give a relatively simple coinductive proof of confluence, modulo equivalence of root-active terms, of nearly orthogonal infinitary term rewriting systems. Nearly orthogonal systems allow certain root overlaps, but no non-root overlaps. Using a slightly more complicated method we also show confluence modulo equivalence of hypercollapsing terms. The condition we impose on root overlaps is similar to the condition used by Toyama in the context of finitary rewriting