Constructing compact models of concurrent Java programs

Abstract

Finite-state verification technology (e.g., model checking) provides a powerful means to detect concurrency errors, which are often subtle and difficult to reproduce. Nevertheless, widespread use of this technology by developers is unlikely until tools provide automated support for extracting the required finite-state models directly from program source. In this paper, we explore the extraction of compact concurrency models from Java code. In particular, we show how static pointer analysis, which has traditionally been used for computing alias information in optimizers, can be used to greatly reduce the size of finite-state models of concurrent Java programs.