Explaining Verification Conditions

Authors:
Ewen Denney;Bernd Fischer
Affiliations:
NASA Ames Research Center, USRA/RIACS, Moffett Field, USA CA 94035;DSSE Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK
Venue:
AMAST 2008 Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Algebraic Methodology and Software Technology
Year:
2008

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Abstract

Hoare-style program verification relies on the construction and discharge of verification conditions (VCs) but offers no support to trace, analyze, and understand the VCs themselves. We describe a systematic extension of the Hoare rules by labels so that the calculus itself can be used to build up explanationsof the VCs. The labels are maintained through the different processing steps and rendered as natural language explanations. The generated explanations are based only on an analysis of the labels rather than directly on the logical meaning of the underlying VCs or their proofs. The explanations can be customized to capture different aspects of the VCs; here, we focus on labelings that explain their structure and purpose.