Bandera: a source-level interface for model checking Java programs

ABSTRACT

Despite emerging tool support for assertion-checking and testing of object-oriented programs, providing convincing evidence of program correctness remains a difficult challenge. This is especially true for multi-threaded programs. Techniques for reasoning about finite-state systems have been developing rapidly over the past decade and have the potential to form the basis of powerful software validation theologies.We have developed the Bandera toolset [1] to harness the power of existing model checking tools to apply them to reason about correctness requirements of Java programs. Bandera provides tool support for defining and managing collections of requirements for a program, for extracting compact finite-state models of the program to enable tractable analysis, and for displaying analysis results to the user through a debugger-like interface. This paper describes and illustrates the use of Bandera's source-level user interface for model checking Java programs.

REFERENCES

• 1: James C. Corbett , Matthew B. Dwyer , John Hatcliff , Shawn Laubach , Corina S. Păsăreanu , Robby , Hongjun Zheng, Bandera: extracting finite-state models from Java source code, Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on Software engineering, p.439-448, June 04-11, 2000, Limerick, Ireland [doi>10.1145/337180.337234]
• 2: Gerard J. Holzmann, The Model Checker SPIN, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.23 n.5, p.279-295, May 1997 [doi>10.1109/32.588521]
• 3: Kenneth L. McMillan, Symbolic Model Checking, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, 1993

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications

          Nouns: Java

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.4 Software/Program Verification
          Subjects: Model checking

  F. Theory of Computation
  F.3 LOGICS AND MEANINGS OF PROGRAMS

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Performance, Reliability, Theory

Keywords:
Java, debugging and testing, model checking, program analysis