Exploring Approximations for Floating-Point Arithmetic using UppSAT
This work addresses software verification challenges for developers and researchers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing approximation refinement frameworks.
The authors tackled the problem of solving floating-point constraints in software verification by introducing UppSAT, a framework for exploring approximations, which resulted in experimental comparisons of various encodings and decision procedures.
We consider the problem of solving floating-point constraints obtained from software verification. We present UppSAT --- a new implementation of a systematic approximation refinement framework [ZWR17] as an abstract SMT solver. Provided with an approximation and a decision procedure (implemented in an off-the-shelf SMT solver), UppSAT yields an approximating SMT solver. Additionally, UppSAT includes a library of predefined approximation components which can be combined and extended to define new encodings, orderings and solving strategies. We propose that UppSAT can be used as a sandbox for easy and flexible exploration of new approximations. To substantiate this, we explore several approximations of floating-point arithmetic. Approximations can be viewed as a composition of an encoding into a target theory, a precision ordering, and a number of strategies for model reconstruction and precision (or approximation) refinement. We present encodings of floating-point arithmetic into reduced precision floating-point arithmetic, real-arithmetic, and fixed-point arithmetic (encoded in the theory of bit-vectors). In an experimental evaluation, we compare the advantages and disadvantages of approximating solvers obtained by combining various encodings and decision procedures (based on existing state-of-the-art SMT solvers for floating-point, real, and bit-vector arithmetic).