Modular Indirect Push-Button Formal Verification of Multi-threaded Code Generators

Abstract

In model-driven development, the automated generation of a multi-threaded program based on a model specifying the intended system behaviour is an important step. Verifying that such a generation step semantically preserves the specified functionality is hard. In related work, code generators have been formally verified using theorem provers, but this is very time-consuming work, should be done by an expert in formal verification, and is not easily adaptable to changes applied in the generator. In this paper, we propose, as an alternative, a push-button approach, combining equivalence checking and code verification with previous results we obtained on the verification of generic code constructs. To illustrate the approach, we consider our Slco framework, which contains a multi-threaded Java code generator. Although the technique can still only be applied to verify individual applications of the generator, its push-button nature and efficiency in practice makes it very suitable for non-experts.