Static Analysis and Verification

• 39 hrs lectures
• 13 hrs projects

• 70 pts final exam (written part)
• 30 pts projects

Students are acquainted with principles and methods of static analysis and verification and with their application within the process of designing computer systems. Students know capabilities and the basic ways of using computer-aided tools for static analysis and verification.
Acquired knowledge about the significance and possibilities of using methods and tools of static analysis and verification within the development of various kinds of systems and about their growing use in practice.

The goal of the course is to get students acquainted with various methods of static analysis and verification that are commonly used in practice for finding bugs or proving correctness of systems. Students will be introduced to a variety of methods of static analysis and verification with their advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, the course will also present an overview of current tools that implement the discussed techniques and students will, through a project, obtain a first-hand practical experience with a chosen tool.

The course will introduce students to methods and tools of static analysis and verification, which are growing in use for assuring quality of computer systems. The knowledge of these methods is beneficial for designers of software, as well as hardware, and is of high importance especially for a work within the area of quality assurance. 

Knowledge of discrete mathematics, the theory of formal languages, and algorithmics on the bachelor's level is assumed.

• Aho, A.V., Lam, S., Sethi, R., Ullman, J.D.: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools. Addison Wesley, 2nd ed., 2006. The part devoted to static analysis.
• Valmari, A.: The State Explosion Problem. In Reisig, W., Rozenberg, G.: Lectures on Petri Nets I: Basic Models, volume 1491 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 429-528. Springer-Verlag, 1998.
• Materials presented within the lectures and made accessible via the Internet.
• Materials freely accessible on the Internet, especially papers and documentation related to the various computer-aided tools for static analysis and verification.
• Rival, X., Yi, K. Introduction to Static Analysis: An Abstract Interpretation Perspective. MIT Press, 2020.
• Clarke, E.M., Henzinger, Th.A., Veith, H., Bloem, R. (Eds.): Handbook of Model Checking, Springer International Publishing, 2018.
• Moller, A., Schwartzbach, M.I.: Static Program Analysis, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark, 2018.

1. Notion of the terms analysis and verification. Classification of verified properties and systems. Overview of approaches to formal analysis and verification.
2. Temporal logics CTL*, CTL, and LTL.
3. Model checking of systems with properties specified in LTL using Büchiho automata.
4. Model checking using predicate abstraction refined by exclusion of spurious counterexamples.
5. Abstract Interpretation I: basic notions and principles.
6. Abstract Interpretation II: an overview of practically successful abstract domains.
7. Basic notions and principles of data flow analysis, classical data flow analyses.
8. Advanced data flow analyses, pointer analyses.
9. Verification of software using symbolic execution.
10. Deductive verification of annotated programs.
11. Solutions of the SAT and SMT problems as the enabling technology of many approaches to analysis and verification.
12. Binary Decision Diagrams.
13. Verification of termination of programs, automatic analysis of computational complexity.

First-hand practical experience with a selected tool for static analysis or verification and the principles it is based on, reproduction of case studies available for the tool, student's own experiments with the tool, and composition of a report about the tool and the performed experiments.

• An evaluated project for 30 points. 
• A final examination for 70 points. 
• To be allowed to sit for the written examination, a student is to earn at least 15 points during the semester.
• 
  Exam prerequisites:
  Having at least 50% of the possible point evaluation of the project.

Having at least 50% of the possible point evaluation of the project.