Automated verification of recursive programs with pointers

Abstract

We present a fully automated method for the verification of annotated recursive programs with dynamic pointer structures. Assertions are expressed in a dialect of dynamic logic extended with nominals and tailored to heap structures, in which one can express complex reachability properties. Verification conditions are generated using a novel calculus for computing the strongest postcondition of statements manipulating the heap, such as dynamic allocation and field-assignment. Further, we introduce a new decidable tableaux-based method and its prototype implementation to automatically check these verification conditions. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.