Elimination of ghost variables in program logics

Authors:
Martin Hofmann;Mariela Pavlova
Affiliations:
Institut für Informatik, LMU München, Germany;Trusted Labs, Sophia-Antipolis, France
Venue:
TGC'07 Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Trustworthy global computing
Year:
2007

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Abstract

Ghost variables are assignable variables that appear in program annotations but do not correspond to physical entities. They are used to facilitate specification and verification, e.g., by using a ghost variable to count the number of iterations of a loop, and also to express extra-functional behaviours. In this paper we give a formal model of ghost variables and show how they can be eliminated from specifications and proofs in a compositional and automatic way. Thus, with the results of this paper ghost variables can be seen as a specification pattern rather than a primitive notion.