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Program Model Checking Case Studies and Practitioner's Guide
Point of Contact Thomas Pressburger
Thomas.T.Pressburger@nasa.gov
Dates January 2004 - April 2007
Problem Program model checking is a verification methodology that uses state-space exploration to evaluate large numbers of potential program behaviors (executions). It can be effective at detecting critical software errors that are difficult to find through testing [1]. While best practices for applying program model checking are emerging, they remain an ad hoc combination of methods for capturing properties, building special purpose test drivers, and modification and abstraction of application code. Also, the effect of design practice on verifiability (including model checking) has not been explored. We propose to assemble these best practices, demonstrate and validate their use in several case studies, and document the results into a Practitioner?s Guide for Program Model Checking.
Objective
  • Year 1, Analysis & Baseline: Determine critical requirements and verification coverage requirements for JSC's SAFM or another C++ application. Set up test environment for the selected application at ARC, apply and document basic model checking techniques and determine coverage of verification goals.
  • Year 2, Application: Apply and document design for verification measures to enhance results of model checking. Determine improvement in coverage of verification goals.
  • Year 3, Evaluation and documentation: Evaluate application of methods for improving model checking conducted during Year 2. Produce practitioner's guidebook for model checking.
Results SAS 05 Executive Presentation.ppt
End Of Year Briefing.ppt
SAS-2005-Penix-Full3.ppt
SAS 06 Executive Presentation.ppt
SAS 06 Technical Presentation.ppt
End of year briefing.ppt
End of year briefing.ppt
A case study and metrics, before and after improvement for verifiability.doc
Practitioner's Guidebook_20070427 _final.pdf
Program Model Checking Practitioners Guide (final 1-15-08).pdf
Keywords Model checking, Software Verification and Validation, Design for verification
Categories Code Analysis
Dynamic Analysis
Formal Methods