We describe a novel method for verifying programs that manipulate
\nlinked lists, based on two new predicates that characterize reachability
\nof heap cells. These predicates allow reasoning about both
\nacyclic and cyclic lists uniformly with equal ease. The crucial insight
\nbehind our approach is that a circular list invariably contains
\na distinguished head cell that provides a handle on the list. This observation
\nsuggests a programming methodology that requires the
\nheap of the program at each step to be well-founded, i.e., for any
\nfield f in the program, every sequence u.f, u.f.f, . . . contains at
\nleast one head cell. We believe that our methodology captures the
\nmost common idiom of programming with linked data structures.
\nWe enforce our methodology by automatically instrumenting the
\nprogram with updates to two auxiliary variables representing these
\npredicates and adding assertions in terms of these auxiliary variables.
\nTo prove program properties and the instrumented assertions,
\nwe provide a first-order axiomatization of our two predicates. We
\nalso introduce a novel induction principle made possible by the
\nwell-foundedness of the heap. We use our induction principle to
\nderive from two basic axioms a small set of additional first-order
\naxioms that are useful for proving the correctness of several programs.
\nWe have implemented our method in a tool and used it to verify
\nthe correctness of a variety of nontrivial programs manipulating
\nboth acyclic and cyclic singly-linked lists and doubly-linked lists.
\nWe also demonstrate the use of indexed predicate abstraction to
\nautomatically synthesize loop invariants for these examples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We describe a novel method for verifying programs that manipulate linked lists, based on two new predicates that characterize reachability of heap cells. These predicates allow reasoning about both acyclic and cyclic lists uniformly with equal ease. The crucial insight behind our approach is that a circular list invariably contains a distinguished head cell that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[],"msr-publication-type":[193716],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-155447","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"ACM","msr_edition":"Principles of Programming Languages (POPL 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