Learning to Synthesize Relational Invariants

Abstract

We propose a method for synthesizing invariants that can help verify relational properties over two programs or two different executions of a program. Applications of such invariants include verifying functional equivalence, non-interference security, and continuity properties. Our method generates invariant candidates using syntax guided synthesis (SyGuS) and then filters them using an SMT-solver based verifier, to ensure they are both inductive invariants and sufficient for verifying the property at hand. To improve performance, we propose two learning based techniques: a logical reasoning (LR) technique to determine which part of the search space can be pruned away, and a reinforcement learning (RL) technique to determine which part of the search space to prioritize. Our experiments on a diverse set of relational verification benchmarks show that our learning based techniques can drastically reduce the search space and, as a result, they allow our method to generate invariants of a higher quality in much shorter time than state-of-the-art invariant synthesis techniques.