Difference Verification with Conditions

Abstract

Modern software-verification tools need to support development processes that involve frequent changes. Existing approaches for incremental verification hard-code specific verification techniques. Some of the approaches must be tightly intertwined with the development process. To solve this open problem, we present the concept of difference verification with conditions. Difference verification with conditions is independent from any specific verification technique and can be integrated in software projects at any time. It first applies a change analysis that detects which parts of a software were changed between revisions and encodes that information in a condition. Based on this condition, an off-the-shelf verifier is used to verify only those parts of the software that are influenced by the changes. As a proof of concept, we propose a simple, syntax-based change analysis and use difference verification with conditions with three off-the-shelf verifiers. An extensive evaluation shows the competitiveness of difference verification with conditions.