Verifying backwards compatibility of object-oriented libraries using Boogie

Abstract

Proving that a library is backwards compatible to an older version can be challenging, as the internal representation of the libraries might completely differ and the clients of the library are usually unknown. This is especially difficult in the setting of object-oriented programs with complex heaps and callbacks. Mechanical verification is a key success factor to make such proofs practicable.In this paper, we present a technique to verify the backwards compatibility or equivalence of class libraries in the setting of unknown program contexts. For a number of textbook examples we have formulated the verification conditions as input to the Boogie program verification system and validated the approach.

Automating regression verification

“…Fortunately, (2) also implies the desired equivalence for the toplevel call (1) with s = 0. Indeed, if one knows or guesses the formula (2), then the fact that it is a valid coupling predicate and that it implies equivalence can be proved automatically with existing verification technology (cf., e.g., [9,22,32]). …”

“…Loops are encoded as recursion. The BCVerifier tool for proving backwards compatibility of Java class libraries by Welsch and Poetzsch-Heffter [32] has a similar pragmatics.…”

“…A number of approaches and tools for regression verification exist already (see Section 6), but the majority of them are not automatic and require the user to supply inductive invariants (e.g., [9,22,32]). We present an approach and a tool for automatic regression verification of imperative programs with integer variables.…”

Regression Verification for Programmable Logic Controller Software

“…In earlier work [11], we presented an automated approach to regression verification based on invariant generation using Horn clauses. Many other approaches [2,16,31,32,39] exist to regression verification for imperative programming languages.…”

Regression verification for Java using a secure information flow calculus

“…This concept is implemented in the equivalence checker SymDiff, where the user supplies the mutual summary, and the verification conditions are discharged by Boogie. The BCVerifier tool of Welsch and Poetzsch-Heffter allows to prove the backwards compatibility of Java class libraries [23]. Felsing et al [8] present a method for proving the equivalence of two related imperative integer programs, implemented in the ReVe tool.…”