An Assertion Language for Constraint Logic Programs

Puebla, Germán; Bueno, Francisco; Hermenegildo, Manuel V.

doi:10.1007/10722311_2

Cited by 78 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…This novel framework for program development is aimed at finding bugs in programs or validating them with respect to (partial) specifications given in terms of assertions (using the concept of abstractions as over-/under-approximations of program semantics). A novel and expressive language of assertions allows describing quite general program properties [10,13,4,2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Software Testing and Run-Time Checking in an Assertion Verification Framework

2009

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Abstract. We present a framework that unifies unit testing and runtime verification (as well as static verification and static debugging). A key contribution of our overall approach is that we preserve the use of a unified assertion language for all of these tasks. We first describe a method for compiling run-time checks for (parts of) assertions which cannot be verified at compile-time via program transformation. This transformation allows checking preconditions and postconditions, including conditional postconditions, properties at arbitrary program points, and certain computational properties. Most importantly, we propose a minimal addition to the assertion language which allows defining unit tests to be run in order to detect possible violations of the (partial) specifications expressed by the assertions. We have implemented the framework within the Ciao/CiaoPP system and effectively applied it to the verification of ISO Prolog compliance and to the detection of different types of bugs in the Ciao system source code. Experimental results are presented that illustrate different trade-offs among program size, running time, or levels of verbosity of the messages shown to the user.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Software Testing and Run-Time Checking in an Assertion Verification Framework

2009

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“…For instance, [23] proposes a rich assertion language which also includes type and mode information for predicates. [20] combines assertion checking with compiletime verification so that only assertions which cannot be statically verified are dynamically checked.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lazy and Enforceable Assertions for Functional Logic Programs

Hanus¹

2011

Functional and Constraint Logic Programming

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Abstract. Assertions or contracts are an important technique to improve the quality of software. Thus, assertions are also desirable for functional logic programming. Unfortunately, there is no established meaning of assertions in languages with a demand-driven evaluation strategy. Strict assertions are immediately checked but may influence the behavior of programs. Lazy assertions do not modify the behavior but may not be faithful since some assertions might not be checked at all. In order to avoid the disadvantages of strict and lazy assertions, we propose enforceable assertions that are delayed as lazy assertions but can be explicitly enforced at some point where faith is required, e.g., at the end of the program execution or before irrevocable I/O actions. We describe a prototypical implementation of this idea in the functional logic language Curry where the programmer can choose between lazy and enforceable assertions.

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“…Fortunately we carne up with a unique solution to this apparent conundrum: Ciao includes a very rich assertion language (and a methodology for dealing with such assertions) [52,82] which allows expressing not only classical types, but also a much wider variety of properties (modes, determinacy non-failure, cost, ...), but in Ciao these assertions are optíonal. This solution makes Ciao very useful both for programming in the small and in the large.…”

Section: The Ciao Approach To Assertionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A key ingredient for the above task is the Ciao assertion language [82]. While not strictly required for developing or compiling programs, the preprocessor and assertion language are important and distinctive components of the Ciao design and they also have their origin in earlier work stemming from <fc-Prolog.…”

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confidence: 99%

An Overview of the Ciao Multiparadigm Language and Program Development Environment and Its Design Philosophy

Hermenegildo¹,

Bueno²,

Carro³

et al. 2008

Concurrency, Graphs and Models

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Abstract. We describe some of the novel aspects and motivations behind the design and implementation of the Ciao multiparadigm programming system. An important aspect of Ciao is that it provides the programmer with a large number of useful features from different programming paradigms and styles, and that the use of each of these features can be turned on and off at will for each program module. Thus, a given module may be using e.g. higher order functions and constraints, while another module may be using objects, predicates, and concurrency. Furthermore, the language is designed to be extensible in a simple and modular way. Another important aspect of Ciao is its programming environment, which provides a powerful preprocessor (with an associated assertion language) capable of statically finding non-trivial bugs, verifying that programs comply with specifications, and performing many types of program optimizations. Such optimizations produce code that is highly competitive with other dynamic languages or, when the highest levéis of optimization are used, even that of static languages, all while retaining the interactive development environment of a dynamic language. The environment also includes a powerful auto-documenter. The paper provides an informal overview of the language and program development environment. It aims at illustrating the design philosophy rather than at being exhaustive, which would be impossible in the format of a paper, pointing instead to the existing literature on the system.

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An Assertion Language for Constraint Logic Programs

Cited by 78 publications

References 13 publications

Integrating Software Testing and Run-Time Checking in an Assertion Verification Framework

Integrating Software Testing and Run-Time Checking in an Assertion Verification Framework

Lazy and Enforceable Assertions for Functional Logic Programs

An Overview of the Ciao Multiparadigm Language and Program Development Environment and Its Design Philosophy

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