research-article

Almost-correct specifications: a modular semantic framework for assigning confidence to warnings

Authors:

Sam Blackshear,

Shuvendu K. LahiriAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '13: Proceedings of the 34th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

Pages 209 - 218

https://doi.org/10.1145/2491956.2462188

Published: 16 June 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Modular assertion checkers are plagued with false alarms due to the need for precise environment specifications (preconditions and callee postconditions). Even the fully precise checkers report assertion failures under the most demonic environments allowed by unconstrained or partial specifications. The inability to preclude overly adversarial environments makes such checkers less attractive to developers and severely limits the adoption of such tools in the development cycle.

In this work, we propose a parameterized framework for prioritizing the assertion failures reported by a modular verifier, with the goal of suppressing warnings from overly demonic environments. We formalize it almost-correct specifications as the minimal weakening of an angelic specification (over a set of predicates) that precludes any dead code intraprocedurally. Our work is inspired by and generalizes some aspects of semantic inconsistency detection. Our formulation allows us to lift this idea to a general class of warnings. We have developed a prototype acspec, which we use to explore a few instantiations of the framework and report preliminary findings on a diverse set of C benchmarks.

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Cited By

DiVincenzo JMcCormack IZimmerman CGouni HGorenburg JRamos-Dávila JZhang MSunshine JTanter ÉAldrich J(2024)Gradual C0: Symbolic Execution for Gradual VerificationACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/370480846:4(1-57)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704808
Wu RHe YHuang JWang CTang WShi QXiao XZhang CRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)LibAlchemy: A Two-Layer Persistent Summary Design for Taming Third-Party Libraries in Static Bug-Finding SystemsProceedings of the IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3597503.3639132(1-13)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
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Almost-correct specifications: a modular semantic framework for assigning confidence to warnings

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cover image ACM Conferences

PLDI '13: Proceedings of the 34th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 2013

546 pages

ISBN:9781450320146

DOI:10.1145/2491956

General Chair:
Hans-J. Boehm
HP Labs
,
Program Chair:
Cormac Flanagan
University of California, Santa Cruz

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 48, Issue 6
PLDI '13
June 2013
515 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2499370
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 16 June 2013

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PLDI '13: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 16 - 19, 2013

Washington, Seattle, USA

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PLDI '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 46 of 267 submissions, 17%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 406 of 2,067 submissions, 20%

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Cited By

DiVincenzo JMcCormack IZimmerman CGouni HGorenburg JRamos-Dávila JZhang MSunshine JTanter ÉAldrich J(2024)Gradual C0: Symbolic Execution for Gradual VerificationACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/370480846:4(1-57)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3704808
Wu RHe YHuang JWang CTang WShi QXiao XZhang CRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)LibAlchemy: A Two-Layer Persistent Summary Design for Taming Third-Party Libraries in Static Bug-Finding SystemsProceedings of the IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3597503.3639132(1-13)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3597503.3639132
Choi YNam J(2023)WINEInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2022.107109155:COnline publication date: 1-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2022.107109
Muske TSerebrenik A(2022)Survey of Approaches for Postprocessing of Static Analysis AlarmsACM Computing Surveys10.1145/349452155:3(1-39)Online publication date: 3-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3494521
Pick LFedyukovich GGupta A(2021)Unbounded Procedure Summaries from Bounded EnvironmentsVerification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation10.1007/978-3-030-67067-2_14(291-324)Online publication date: 12-Jan-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67067-2_14
Raghothaman MKulkarni SHeo KNaik M(2018)User-guided program reasoning using Bayesian inferenceACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3296979.319241753:4(722-735)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3296979.3192417
Zhao JAlbarghouthi ARastogi VJha SOcteau DLeavens GGarcia APăsăreanu C(2018)Neural-augmented static analysis of Android communicationProceedings of the 2018 26th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3236024.3236066(342-353)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2018
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Raghothaman MKulkarni SHeo KNaik MFoster JGrossman D(2018)User-guided program reasoning using Bayesian inferenceProceedings of the 39th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3192366.3192417(722-735)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3192366.3192417
Zhang XGrigore RSi XNaik M(2017)Effective interactive resolution of static analysis alarmsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/31338811:OOPSLA(1-30)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2017
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Zhang DMyers AVytiniotis DPeyton-Jones S(2017)SHErrLocACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/312113739:4(1-47)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2017
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