2014/06/04 by David S. Hardin, Jennifer A. Davis, David A. Greve +1
Computer Science · Engineering · #Logic, programming, and type systems #Safety Systems Engineering in Autonomy #Security and Verification in Computing #cs.LO #cs.PL
paper · pdf · doi:10.4204/eptcs.152.13
published as EPTCS 152, 2014, pp. 163-177 · In Proceedings ACL2 2014, arXiv:1406.1238
openalex publication_date 2014/06/04 · arxiv created 2014/06/06 · arxiv updated 2014/06/09 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
In our current work a library of formally verified software components is to be created, and assembled, using the Low-Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) intermediate form, into subsystems whose top-level assurance relies on the assurance of the individual components. We have thus undertaken a project to build a translator from LLVM to the applicative subset of Common Lisp accepted by the ACL2 theorem prover. Our translator produces executable ACL2 formal models, allowing us to both prove theorems about the translated models as well as validate those models by testing. The resulting models can be translated and certified without user intervention, even for code with loops, thanks to the use of the def::ung macro which allows us to defer the question of termination. Initial measurements of concrete execution for translated LLVM functions indicate that performance is nearly 2.4 million LLVM instructions per second on a typical laptop computer. In this paper we overview the translation process and illustrate the translator's capabilities by way of a concrete example, including both a functional correctness theorem as well as a validation test for that example.