Experiments with a Convex Polyhedral Analysis Tool for Logic Programs

Convex polyhedral abstractions of logic programs have been found very useful in deriving numeric relationships between program arguments in order to prove program properties and in other areas such as termination and complexity analysis. We present a tool for constructing polyhedral analyses of (constraint) logic programs. The aim of the tool is to make available, with a convenient interface, state-of-the-art techniques for polyhedral analysis such as delayed widening, narrowing, "widening up-to", and enhanced automatic selection of widening points. The tool is accessible on the web, permits user programs to be uploaded and analysed, and is integrated with related program transformations such as size abstractions and query-answer transformation. We then report some experiments using the tool, showing how it can be conveniently used to analyse transition systems arising from models of embedded systems, and an emulator for a PIC microcontroller which is used for example in wearable computing systems. We discuss issues including scalability, tradeoffs of precision and computation time, and other program transformations that can enhance the results of analysis.Comment: Paper presented at the 17th Workshop on Logic-based Methods in Programming Environments (WLPE2007

An Abstract Domain to Infer Symbolic Ranges over Nonnegative Parameters

AbstractThe value range information of program variables is useful in many applications such as compiler optimization and program analysis. In the framework of abstract interpretation, the interval abstract domain infers numerical bounds for each program variable. However, in certain applications such as automatic parallelization, symbolic ranges are often desired. In this paper, we present a new numerical abstract domain, namely the abstract domain of parametric ranges, to infer symbolic ranges over nonnegative parameters for each program variable. The new domain is designed based on the insight that in certain contexts, program procedures often have nonnegative parameters, such as the length of an input list and the size of an input array. The domain of parametric ranges seeks to infer the lower and upper bounds for each program variable where each bound is a linear expression over nonnegative parameters. The time and memory complexity of the domain operations of parametric ranges is O(nm) where n is the number of program variables and m is the number of nonnegative parameters. On this basis, we show the application of parametric ranges to infer symbolic ranges of the sizes of list segments in programs manipulating singly-linked lists. Finally, we show preliminary experimental results

Invariant Generation through Strategy Iteration in Succinctly Represented Control Flow Graphs

We consider the problem of computing numerical invariants of programs, for instance bounds on the values of numerical program variables. More specifically, we study the problem of performing static analysis by abstract interpretation using template linear constraint domains. Such invariants can be obtained by Kleene iterations that are, in order to guarantee termination, accelerated by widening operators. In many cases, however, applying this form of extrapolation leads to invariants that are weaker than the strongest inductive invariant that can be expressed within the abstract domain in use. Another well-known source of imprecision of traditional abstract interpretation techniques stems from their use of join operators at merge nodes in the control flow graph. The mentioned weaknesses may prevent these methods from proving safety properties. The technique we develop in this article addresses both of these issues: contrary to Kleene iterations accelerated by widening operators, it is guaranteed to yield the strongest inductive invariant that can be expressed within the template linear constraint domain in use. It also eschews join operators by distinguishing all paths of loop-free code segments. Formally speaking, our technique computes the least fixpoint within a given template linear constraint domain of a transition relation that is succinctly expressed as an existentially quantified linear real arithmetic formula. In contrast to previously published techniques that rely on quantifier elimination, our algorithm is proved to have optimal complexity: we prove that the decision problem associated with our fixpoint problem is in the second level of the polynomial-time hierarchy.Comment: 35 pages, conference version published at ESOP 2011, this version is a CoRR version of our submission to Logical Methods in Computer Scienc

Commensurable continued fractions

We compare two families of continued fractions algorithms, the symmetrized Rosen algorithm and the Veech algorithm. Each of these algorithms expands real numbers in terms of certain algebraic integers. We give explicit models of the natural extension of the maps associated with these algorithms; prove that these natural extensions are in fact conjugate to the first return map of the geodesic flow on a related surface; and, deduce that, up to a conjugacy, almost every real number has an infinite number of common approximants for both algorithms.Comment: 41 pages, 10 figure

A Linearization Technique for Multivariate Polynomials Using Convex Polyhedra Based on Handelman-Krivine's Theorem

National audienceWe present a new linearization method to over-approximate non-linear multivariate polynomials with convex polyhedra.It is based on Handelman-Krivine's theorem and consists in using products of constraints of a polyhedron to over-approximate a polynomial on this polyhedron. We implemented it together with two other linearization methods that we will not detail in this paper, but that we shall use as comparison. Our implementation in Ocaml generates certificates that can be verified by a trusted checker, certified in Coq, that guarantees the correctness of our linear approximation

Repulsive force in the field theory of gravitation

It is shown that the slowing down of the rate of time referencing to the inertial time leads in the field theory of gravitation to arising of repulsive forces which remove the cosmological singularity in the evolution of a homogeneous and isotropic universe and stop the collapse of large masses.Comment: 22 pages, Plenary talk presented at Workshop on High Energy Physics&Field Theory (Protvino, Russia, 2005