Logic for reasoning about bugs in loops over data sequences (IFIL)

Abstract

Classic deductive verification is not focused on reasoning about program incorrectness. Reasoning about program incorrectness using formal methods is an important problem nowadays. Special logics such as Incorrectness Logic, Adversarial Logic, Local Completeness Logic, Exact Separation Logic and Outcome Logic have recently been proposed to address it. However, these logics have two disadvantages. One is that they are based on under-approximation approaches, while classic deductive verification is based on the over-approximation approach. One the other hand, the use of the classic approach requires defining loop invariants in a general case. The second disadvantage is that the use of generalized inference rules from these logics results in having to prove too complex formulas in simple cases. Our contribution is a new logic for solving these problems in the case of loops over data sequences. These loops are referred to as finite iterations. We call the proposed logic the Incorrectness Finite Iteration Logic (IFIL). We avoid defining invariants of finite iterations using a symbolic replacement of these loops with recursive functions. Our logic is based on special inference rules for finite iterations. These rules allow generating formulas with recursive functions corresponding to finite iterations. The validity of these formulas may indicate the presence of bugs in the finite iterations. This logic has been implemented in a new version of the C-lightVer system for deductive verification of C programs.