Embedding Hindsight Reasoning in Separation Logic

Automatically proving linearizability of concurrent data structures remains a key challenge for verification. We present temporal interpolation as a new proof principle to guide automated proof search using hindsight arguments within concurrent separation logic. Temporal interpolation offers an easy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of ACM on programming languages Vol. 7; no. PLDI; pp. 1848 - 1871
Main Authors: Meyer, Roland, Wies, Thomas, Wolff, Sebastian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, NY, USA ACM 06.06.2023
Subjects:
Automated reasoning
Hoare logic
Program verification
Programming logic
Separation logic
Theory of computation
Hindsight
Logical Ordering Tree
Linearizability
ISSN:2475-1421, 2475-1421
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Automatically proving linearizability of concurrent data structures remains a key challenge for verification. We present temporal interpolation as a new proof principle to guide automated proof search using hindsight arguments within concurrent separation logic. Temporal interpolation offers an easy-to-automate alternative to prophecy variables and has the advantage of structuring proofs into easy-to-discharge hypotheses. Additionally, we advance hindsight theory by integrating it into a program logic, bringing formal rigor and complementary proof machinery. We substantiate the usefulness of temporal interpolation by implementing it in a tool and using it to automatically verify the Logical Ordering tree. The proof is challenging due to future-dependent linearization points and complex structure overlays. It is the first formal proof of this data structure. Interestingly, our formalization revealed an unknown bug and an existing informal proof as erroneous.
ISSN:2475-1421
2475-1421
DOI:10.1145/3591296