Exploration of the scalability of LocFaults approach for error localization with While-loops programs
This addresses the challenge of understanding long counterexample traces in model checking for software verification, though it appears incremental as an extension of the authors' prior LocFaults method.
The paper tackles the problem of error localization in programs with While-loops by exploring the scalability of the LocFaults approach, which uses control flow graphs and minimal correction deviations; preliminary results show it has better runtime than BugAssist and provides more expressive information for users.
A model checker can produce a trace of counterexample, for an erroneous program, which is often long and difficult to understand. In general, the part about the loops is the largest among the instructions in this trace. This makes the location of errors in loops critical, to analyze errors in the overall program. In this paper, we explore the scala-bility capabilities of LocFaults, our error localization approach exploiting paths of CFG(Control Flow Graph) from a counterexample to calculate the MCDs (Minimal Correction Deviations), and MCSs (Minimal Correction Subsets) from each found MCD. We present the times of our approach on programs with While-loops unfolded b times, and a number of deviated conditions ranging from 0 to n. Our preliminary results show that the times of our approach, constraint-based and flow-driven, are better compared to BugAssist which is based on SAT and transforms the entire program to a Boolean formula, and further the information provided by LocFaults is more expressive for the user.