A formally verified sorting certifier

Author

Bright, Jonathan D. ; Sullivan, Gregory F. ; Masson, Gerald M.

Author_Institution

Informix Software Inc., Oakland, CA, USA

Volume

46

Issue

12

fYear

1997

fDate

12/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1304

Lastpage

1312

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the use of the certification-trail technique as the basis of a hybrid framework for building formally verified software systems. Our technique involves formally verifying only a part of a software system; however, the technique yields a software system which still satisfies the most important correctness properties. Substantial savings in the overhead of software verification, and also in program running time, are shown to be possible in comparison to traditional methods. We apply our technique to the problem of sorting, since sorting represents one of the most basic operations in computer science, and a formally verified sorting certifier should have significant applicability. The results presented in this paper represent an enhancement of the certification-trail technique relative to the detection of incorrect computational output caused by software faults

Keywords

program verification; sorting; certification-trail; correctness properties; formally verified software; program result checking; software verification; sorting; sorting certifier; Certification; Computer bugs; Computer errors; Computer science; Error correction; Fault detection; Hardware; Redundancy; Software systems; Sorting;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computers, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9340

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/12.641931

Filename

641931