Automated verification of relational while-programs

Abstract

Software verification is essential for safety-critical systems. In this paper, we illustrate that some verification tasks can be done fully automatically. We show how to automatically verify imperative programs for relation-based discrete structures by combining relation algebra and the well-known assertion-based verification method with automated theorem proving. We present two examples in detail: a relational program for determining the reflexive-transitive closure and a topological sorting algorithm. We also treat the automatic verification of the equivalence of common-logical and relation-algebraic specifications. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.