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Symbolic execution and program testing

Author:

James C. KingAuthors Info & Claims

Communications of the ACM, Volume 19, Issue 7

Pages 385 - 394

https://doi.org/10.1145/360248.360252

Published: 01 July 1976 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes the symbolic execution of programs. Instead of supplying the normal inputs to a program (e.g. numbers) one supplies symbols representing arbitrary values. The execution proceeds as in a normal execution except that values may be symbolic formulas over the input symbols. The difficult, yet interesting issues arise during the symbolic execution of conditional branch type statements. A particular system called EFFIGY which provides symbolic execution for program testing and debugging is also described. It interpretively executes programs written in a simple PL/I style programming language. It includes many standard debugging features, the ability to manage and to prove things about symbolic expressions, a simple program testing manager, and a program verifier. A brief discussion of the relationship between symbolic execution and program proving is also included.

References

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Boyer, R.S., Elspas, B., Levitt, K.N. SELECT-A formal system for testing and debugging programs by symbolic execution. 1975 Int. Conf. on Reliable Software, April 1975, pp. 234-245.

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Clarke, L. A system to generate test data and symbolically execute programs. Rep. No. CU-CS-060-75, Dep. of Computer Sci., U. of Colorado, Feb. 1975.

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Darlington, J. A semantic approach to automatic program improvement. Ph.D. Th., U. of Edinburgh, 1972.

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Deutsch, L.P. An interactive program verifier. Ph.D. Th., Dep. of Computer Sci., U. of California, Berkeley, May 1973.

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Elspas, B., et al. An assessment of techniques for proving program correctness. Computing Surveys 4, 2 (June 1972), 97-147.

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Floyd, R.W. Assigning meanings to programs, Proc. Symp. Appl. Math. Vol. 19, Amer. Math. Soc., Provincetown, R.I., 1967, pp. 19-32.

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King, J.C. Proving programs to be correct. IEEE Trans. on Comp. C-20, 11 (Nov. 1971), 1331-1336.

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King, J.C. A program verifier. Proc. IFIP Cong. 71, North- Holland, Amsterdam, 1971, pp. 235-249.

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King, J.C. and Floyd, R.W. An interpretation oriented theorem prover over integers, J. Computer Syst. Sci. 6, 4(Aug. 1972), 305-323.

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King, J.C. A new approach to program testing. 1975 Int. Conf. on Reliable Software, April 1975, pp. 228-233.

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Krause, K.W., et al. Optimal software test planning through Automated network analysis. IEEE Symp. on Computer Software Reliability, April 1973, pp. 18-22.

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Manna, Z. Mathematical Theory of Computation. McGraw- Hill, New York, 1974, Ch. 4.

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Paterson, M.S. Equivalence problems in a model of computation. Ph.D. Th., U. of Cambridge, England, Aug. 1967. Also published as A.I. Tech. Memo No. 1 (Memo No. 211), MIT, Nov. 1970.

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Sites, R.L. Algol W Reference Manual. Rep. CS-230 (Clearinghouse No. PB 203601), Computer Sci. Dep., Stanford LI., Feb. 1972.

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Topor, R.W., and Burstall, R.M. Verification of programs by symbolic execution-progress report. Unpublished report, Dep. of Machine Intelligence, U. of Edinburgh, Scotland, Dec. 1972.

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Urschler, G. Complete redundant expression elimination in flow diagrams. Rep. RC4965, IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, N.Y., Aug. 1974.

Cited By

Dey SGangopadhyay BDasgupta PDey SDastani MSichman JAlechina NDignum V(2024)MAGNets: Micro-Architectured Group Neural NetworksProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3635637.3663252(2650-2658)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
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Mr. S. Manikanda Dr. S. Venkatakiran (2024)Integrity Testing Performance Analysis in Embedded Systems using IDIInternational Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology10.48175/IJARSCT-18834(267-269)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2024
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Wei JChen P(2024)DSLR–: A low-overhead data structure layout randomization for defending data-oriented programmingJournal of Computer Security10.3233/JCS-23005332:3(221-246)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3233/JCS-230053
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Symbolic execution and program testing
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
2. Theory of computation
  1. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program reasoning

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cover image Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM Volume 19, Issue 7

July 1976

56 pages

ISSN:0001-0782

EISSN:1557-7317

DOI:10.1145/360248

Editor:
Robert L. Ashenhurst
Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1976 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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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 July 1976

Published in CACM Volume 19, Issue 7

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Cited By

Dey SGangopadhyay BDasgupta PDey SDastani MSichman JAlechina NDignum V(2024)MAGNets: Micro-Architectured Group Neural NetworksProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/3635637.3663252(2650-2658)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3635637.3663252
Mr. S. Manikanda Dr. S. Venkatakiran (2024)Integrity Testing Performance Analysis in Embedded Systems using IDIInternational Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology10.48175/IJARSCT-18834(267-269)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.48175/IJARSCT-18834
Wei JChen P(2024)DSLR–: A low-overhead data structure layout randomization for defending data-oriented programmingJournal of Computer Security10.3233/JCS-23005332:3(221-246)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3233/JCS-230053
Umann KHorváth GPorkoláb Z(2024)Uncovering Hidden Dependencies: Constructing Intelligible Path Witnesses using Dataflow AnalysesActa Cybernetica10.14232/actacyb.29980526:3(713-747)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.14232/actacyb.299805
Hao JWang MZhang H(2024)Efficient Deadlock Detection in MPI Programs with Path Compression and Focus MatchingProceedings of the 15th Asia-Pacific Symposium on Internetware10.1145/3671016.3674822(467-476)Online publication date: 24-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3671016.3674822
Swierzy BBoes FPohl TBungartz CMeier M(2024)SoK: Automated Software Testing for TLS LibrariesProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security10.1145/3664476.3670871(1-12)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2024
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Asadian HFiterau-Brostean PJonsson BSagonas K(2024)Monitor-based Testing of Network Protocol Implementations Using Symbolic ExecutionProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security10.1145/3664476.3664521(1-12)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2024
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Shuai ZChen ZMa KLiu KZhang YSun JWang J(2024)Partial Solution Based Constraint Solving Cache in Symbolic ExecutionProceedings of the ACM on Software Engineering10.1145/36608171:FSE(2493-2514)Online publication date: 12-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3660817
Fang WYing M(2024)Symbolic Execution for Quantum Error Correction ProgramsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36564198:PLDI(1040-1065)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2024
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Li RYuan YYe FLiu MYang RYu YGuo TMa QZeng XXu CCai DZhai ESekar VYu MSeneviratne AVeitch D(2024)A General and Efficient Approach to Verifying Traffic Load Properties under Arbitrary k FailuresProceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2024 Conference10.1145/3651890.3672246(228-243)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2024
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