Software Verification

The International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA) is a bi-monthly open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles which contribute new results in all areas of the Software Engineering & Applications. The goal of this journal is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to focus on understanding Modern software engineering concepts & establishing new collaborations in these areas.

Model-based software development, particularly when it utilizes unified modeling language (UML) tools, provides artifacts that make programs more transparent. We use these capabilities to automate major steps in the generation of a software FMEA. Automation not only reduces the labor required but also makes the process repeatable and removes many subjective decisions that can impair the credibility of a software

Growing security requirements for systems and applications have raised the stakes on software security verification techniques. Recently, model-checking is settling in the arena of software verification. It is effective in verifying high-level security properties related to software functionalities. In this paper, we present the experiments conducted with our security verification framework based on model-checking. We embedded a wide range of the CERT secure coding rules into our framework. Then, we verified real software packages against these rules for purpose of demonstrating the capability and the efficiency of our tool in detecting real errors.

For projects that rely on empirical process control and deliver frequently working versions of software, developers and project managers regularly need to examine the status of their software quality. This study illustrates that simple goal-oriented changes or extensions to the existing data of projects' respective defect tracking systems could provide valuable and prompt information to improve their software quality assessment

Declarative techniques for software verification require the availability of scalable, predictable, and flexible satisfiability solvers. We describe our approach to build such solvers by combining equational theorem proving, Boolean solving, arithmetic reasoning, and some transformations of the proof obligations. The proposed techniques have been implemented in a system called haRVey and the viability of the approach is shown on proof obligations generated in the certification of aerospace code.

Declarative techniques for software verification require the availability of scalable, predictable, and flexible satisfiability solvers. We describe our approach to build such solvers by combining equational theorem proving, Boolean solving, arithmetic reasoning, and some transformations of the proof obligations. The proposed techniques have been implemented in a system called haRVey and the viability of the approach is shown on proof obligations generated in the certification of aerospace code.

Abstract—Requirements modelling helps software engineers understand a system’s required behaviour and explore alternative system designs. It also generates a formal software specification that can be used for testing, verification, and debugging. However, elaborating such models requires expertise and significant human effort. The paper aims at reducing this effort by automating an essential activity of requirements modelling which consists in deriving a machine specification satisfying a set of goals in a domain. It introduces deontic input-output automata —an extension of input-output automata with permissions and obligations — and an automated synthesis technique over this formalism to support such derivation. This technique helps modellers identifying early when a goal is not realizable in a domain and can guide the exploration of alternative models to make goals realizable. Synthesis techniques for input-output or interface automata are not adequate for requirements modelling. I.

In this paper we describe our experiences applying formal software verification in a real-world distributed Video-on-Demand server. As the application of formal methods to large systems is extremely difficult, relevant properties of a particular subsystem have been identified and then verified separately. Conclusions on the whole system can be drawn later. The development consists of two parts: first, the definition of the algorithm in the coq proof assistant; second, codification of the theorems with the help of some new tactics derived ...

One of the current problems in software systems development is the increasing complexity of analysing and guaranteeing the reliable behaviour of these systems. This project is oriented towards the development of the methods, tools and techniques necessary for supporting quality software construction, with emphasis on practical application to the industrial processes of software companies. This proposal is based on the use of lightweight formal methods in Software Engineering, i.e., the partial application of formalisms at dierent levels: language, modelling, analysis and composition. The basic idea is to subordinate general methods that support the entire development process and to enhance the real application of formal methods at certain phases of the software life cycle. In order to illustrate the feasibility of this approach, most of the project activities are within the field of component-based software development. The project is a coordinated proposal of four university teams ...