Using Graph Transformations and Graph Abstractions for Software Verification

In this paper we describe our intended approach for the verification of software written in imperative programming languages. We base our approach on model checking of graph transition systems, where each state is a graph and the transitions are specified by graph transformation rules. We believe that graph transformation is a very suitable technique to model the execution semantics of languages with dynamic memory allocation. Furthermore, such representation allows us to investigate the use of graph abstractions, which can mitigate the combinatorial explosion inherent to model checking. In addition to presenting our planned approach, we reason about its feasibility, and, by providing a brief comparison to other existing methods, we highlight the benefits and drawbacks that are expected

Syntactic-Semantic Incrementality for Agile Verification

Abstract Modern software systems are continuously evolving, often because systems requirements change over time. Responding to requirements changes is one of the principles of agile methodologies. In this paper we envision the seamless integration of automated verification techniques within agile methodologies, thanks to the support for incrementality. Incremental verification accommodates the changes that occur within the schedule of frequent releases of software agile processes. We propose a general approach to developing families of verifiers that can support incremental verification for different kinds of artifacts and properties. The proposed syntactic-semantic approach is rooted in operator precedence grammars and their support for incremental parsing. Incremental verification procedures are encoded as attribute grammars, whose incremental evaluation goes hand in hand with incremental parsing

Syntactic-Semantic Incrementality for Agile Verification

Abstract Modern software systems are continuously evolving, often because systems requirements change over time. Responding to requirements changes is one of the principles of agile methodologies. In this paper we envision the seamless integration of automated verification techniques within agile methodologies, thanks to the support for incrementality. Incremental verification accommodates the changes that occur within the schedule of frequent releases of software agile processes. We propose a general approach to developing families of verifiers that can support incremental verification for different kinds of artifacts and properties. The proposed syntactic-semantic approach is rooted in operator precedence grammars and their support for incremental parsing. Incremental verification procedures are encoded as attribute grammars, whose incremental evaluation goes hand in hand with incremental parsing

A framework for safe composition of heterogeneous SOA services in a pervasive computing environment with resource constraints

The Service Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm, defines services as software artifacts whose implementations are separated from their specifications. Application developers rely on services to simplify the design, reduce the development time and cost. Within the SOC paradigm, different Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) have been developed. These different SOAs provide platform independence, programming-language independence, defined standards, and network support. Even when different SOAs follow the same SOC principles, in practice it is difficult to compose services from heterogeneous architectures. Automatic the process of composition of services from heterogeneous SOAs is not a trivial task. Current composition tools usually focus on a single SOA, while others do not provide mechanisms for ensuring safety of composite services and their interactions. Given that some services might perform critical operations or manage sensitive data, defining safety for services and checking for compliance is crucial. This work proposes and workflow specification language for composite services that is SOA-independent. It also presents a framework for automatic composition of services of heterogeneous SOAs, supporting web services (WS) and OSGi services as an example. It integrates formal software analysis methods to ensure the safety of composite services and their interactions. Experiments are conducted to study the performance of the composite service generated automatically by the framework with composite services using current composition methods. We use as an example a smart home composite service for the management of medicines, deployed in a regular and in a resource-constrained network environment

Formal software analysis : Emerging trends in software model checking

The study of methodologies and techniques to produce correct software has been active for four decades. During this period, researchers have developed and investigated a wide variety of approaches, but techniques based on mathematical modeling of program behavior have been a particular focus since they offer the promise of both finding errors and assuring important program properties. The past fifteen years have seen a marked and accelerating shift towards algorithmic formal reasoning about program behavior- we refer to these as formal software analysis. In this paper, we define formal software analyses as having several important properties that distinguish them from other forms of software analysis. We describe three foundational formal software analyses, but focus on the adaptation of model checking to reason about software. We review emerging trends in software model checking and identify future directions that promise to significantly improve its cost-effectiveness. 1

Nutzerfreundliche Modellierung mit hybriden Systemen zur symbolischen Simulation in CLP

Die Dissertation beinhaltet die Sprachen MODEL-HS und VYSMO zur modularen, deklarativen Beschreibung hybrider Systeme, die dem Nachweis zeit- und sicherheitskritischer Eigenschaften für die symbolische Simulation in CLP dienen. Zum Erlangen sprachtheoretischer Erkenntnisse wie Entscheidbarkeit wurden hybride Systeme neu unter formal nachweisbaren Akzeptanzbedingungen definiert, welche durch praktische Beispiele belegt sind. Weitere Ergebnisse sind eine neue Klassifikation hybrider Systeme, ein Werkzeug ROSSY, Anfragebeschreibungen und deren Transformation in temporal-logische Ausdrücke, Anfragemasken und Anwendungen für Studiensysteme und parallele Programme.The dissertation includes the languages MODEL-HS and VYSMO for modular, declarative description of hybrid systems that serve the proof of time- and safety-critical properties for symbolic simulation in CLP. For coming to language-theoretical conclusions like decidability hybrid systems are newly defined under acceptance conditions that can be formally proved and for which practical examples bear witness. A new classification of hybrid systems, a tool ROSSY, query descriptions and their transformation into temporal-logic expressions, query forms and applications for study systems and parallel programs are further results