Separation Logic Tutorial

• Authors: Peter O'Hearn
• Venue: ICLP '08 Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Logic Programming
• Year: 2008

Separation logic is an extension of Hoare’s logic forreasoning about programs that manipulate pointers. It is based onthe separating conjunction P ∗ Q, whichasserts that P and Q hold for separate portions of computermemory. This tutorial on separation logic has three parts. Basics. Concentrating on highlights from the early work[1,2,3,4]. 1 Model Theory. The model theory of separation logicevolved from the general resource models of bunched logic [5,6,7]and includes an account of program dynamics in terms of theirinteraction with resource [8,9]. 1 Proof Theory. I will describe those aspects of theproof theory, particularly new entailment questions (frame andanti-frame inference [10,11]), which are important for applicationsin mechanized program verification.