We introduce heap automata, a formalism for automatic reasoning about robustness properties of the symbolic heap fragment of separation logic with user-defined inductive predicates. Robustness properties, such as satisfiability, reachability, and acyclicity, are important for a wide range of reasoning tasks in automated program analysis and verification based on separation logic. Previously, such properties have appeared in many places in the separation logic literature, but have not been studied in a systematic manner. In this paper, we develop an algorithmic framework based on heap automata that allows us to derive asymptotically optimal decision procedures for a wide range of robustness properties in a uniform way. We implemented a protoype of our framework and obtained promising results for all of the aforementioned robustness properties. Further, we demonstrate the applicability of heap automata beyond robustness properties. We apply our algorithmic framework to the model checking and the entailment problem for symbolic-heap separation logic.

No abstract

Abstract. Heap-based data structures play an important role in modern programming concepts. However standard verification algorithms cannot cope with infinite state spaces as induced by these structures. A common approach to solve this problem is to apply abstraction techniques. Hyperedge replacement grammars provide a promising technique for heap abstraction as their production rules can be used to partially abstract and concretise heap structures. To support the required concretisations, we introduce a normal form for hyperedge replacement grammars as a generalisation of the Greibach Normal Form for string grammars and the adapted construction.

No abstract

No abstract