Jacco: more efficient model checking toolset for Java actor programs

Abstract

Actors provide concurrent, distributed, and event-driven autonomous objects which communicate asynchronously. Actor model benefits from higher level of scalability and actor programs are less error-prone in comparison to programs developed in other concurrent models. However, it does not prevent the racing and concurrency errors. So, to guarantee the correctness of mission critical actor programs, verification techniques like model checking are needed. Previously, Basset has been developed based on Java PathFinder, for model checking of Java actor programs. The message scheduling approach of Basset can cause false negative results as well as and early state space exploration. In addition, using Java PathFinder as the back-end model checker imposes the execution time inefficiencies. To resolve these issues, we developed Jacco as the direct model checking toolset for Java actor programs. We provided a new message scheduling approach and implemented it in Java. To illustrate how efficiently Jacco works, Basset and Jacco model checking results are compared for a number of case studies. We also used Jacco for the model checking of a real-world program in robotics systems.