32,538 research outputs found
A Logic of Reachable Patterns in Linked Data-Structures
We define a new decidable logic for expressing and checking invariants of
programs that manipulate dynamically-allocated objects via pointers and
destructive pointer updates. The main feature of this logic is the ability to
limit the neighborhood of a node that is reachable via a regular expression
from a designated node. The logic is closed under boolean operations
(entailment, negation) and has a finite model property. The key technical
result is the proof of decidability. We show how to express precondition,
postconditions, and loop invariants for some interesting programs. It is also
possible to express properties such as disjointness of data-structures, and
low-level heap mutations. Moreover, our logic can express properties of
arbitrary data-structures and of an arbitrary number of pointer fields. The
latter provides a way to naturally specify postconditions that relate the
fields on entry to a procedure to the fields on exit. Therefore, it is possible
to use the logic to automatically prove partial correctness of programs
performing low-level heap mutations
Independence and concurrent separation logic
A compositional Petri net-based semantics is given to a simple language
allowing pointer manipulation and parallelism. The model is then applied to
give a notion of validity to the judgements made by concurrent separation logic
that emphasizes the process-environment duality inherent in such rely-guarantee
reasoning. Soundness of the rules of concurrent separation logic with respect
to this definition of validity is shown. The independence information retained
by the Petri net model is then exploited to characterize the independence of
parallel processes enforced by the logic. This is shown to permit a refinement
operation capable of changing the granularity of atomic actions
Fifty years of Hoare's Logic
We present a history of Hoare's logic.Comment: 79 pages. To appear in Formal Aspects of Computin
Specifying and Executing Optimizations for Parallel Programs
Compiler optimizations, usually expressed as rewrites on program graphs, are
a core part of all modern compilers. However, even production compilers have
bugs, and these bugs are difficult to detect and resolve. The problem only
becomes more complex when compiling parallel programs; from the choice of graph
representation to the possibility of race conditions, optimization designers
have a range of factors to consider that do not appear when dealing with
single-threaded programs. In this paper we present PTRANS, a domain-specific
language for formal specification of compiler transformations, and describe its
executable semantics. The fundamental approach of PTRANS is to describe program
transformations as rewrites on control flow graphs with temporal logic side
conditions. The syntax of PTRANS allows cleaner, more comprehensible
specification of program optimizations; its executable semantics allows these
specifications to act as prototypes for the optimizations themselves, so that
candidate optimizations can be tested and refined before going on to include
them in a compiler. We demonstrate the use of PTRANS to state, test, and refine
the specification of a redundant store elimination optimization on parallel
programs.Comment: In Proceedings GRAPHITE 2014, arXiv:1407.767
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