Combining Dynamic and Static Analysis to Help Develop Correct Graph Transformations

Abstract

Developing provably correct graph transformations is not a trivial task. Besides writing the code, a developer must as well specify the pre and post conditions. The objective of our work is to assist developers in producing such a Hoare triple in order to submit it to a formal verification tool. By combining static and dynamic analysis, we aim at providing more useful feedback to developers. Dynamic analysis helps identify inconsistencies between the code and its specifications. Static analysis facilitates extracting the pre and post conditions from the code. Based on this proposal, we implemented a prototype that allows running, testing and proving graph transformations written in small t ALC , our own transformation language.

Verification of Model Transformations Using Isabelle/HOL and Scala

“…In (Baklanova et al 2015), the authors define a new language, called small-t ALC , which is a simple imperative programming language, and preand post-conditions as well as loop invariants are defined in the description logic ALC. Then, in (Makhlouf et al 2016), based on this small-t ALC transformation language , the authors combine both verification techniques dynamic and static analysis. In the dynamic analysis, they define some properties in the form of assertions, pre-and post-conditions, such as the existence of a set of nodes, which help them to identify the inconsistency between the code and its specifications on the execution time.…”